SkyGods Saga v 1.02

In the land of the floating sky (actually it is just a floating land). Lived immortal people with wings. People know them as Angels or Gods, and they enjoyed being worshipped as such (even though they have never met actual Angels nor Gods). They developed their technology independently from the Love Below (that's how they called the land beneath them), and since they discovered computers everyone has gone mad. But one thing I almost forgot, they have figured out the secret of immortality and now they can age and reverse aging as they pleased. This makes them really bored, and to conquer their boredom they often visited the Love Below (even though originally their policy was to not do that), in order to swindle the opposite sex into romance, mating, and even marriage. Upon which they'd abandon after they found something else to be interesting. 

Now the people of the floating sky has a new game to play, that is the share market. The game started with them visiting prospectus countries or organizations below, and then in exchange for their real time information, they would "invest" valuable materials, skills, knowledge, and even magic (known as favors) that would help them succeed. Back at the floating sky, players have allocated fixed amount of favors to the game, which is quite a massive amount. Each player could buy their portion of favors to give to their "companies", and the better the companies are in their statistics, the larger the share of favors they would gain in the future. But if the companies they've invested in were doing bad, their share of favors in the future would be reduced.  

(As we could see this is a zero sum game, which brought about reasons to destroy competing companies. The conclusion of this situation would be that there are something/things from the land below that is a commodity for the SkyGods, and instead of playing with favors, the share market would be played for the shares of profits). 

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The Tyrant Mountain

The city of Arcadia is a medieval city where they have raptors as horses. Early citizens of Arcadia were inhabitants of the Tyrant Mountain. A dragon tamer used some juvenile dragons to vandalize the village repeatedly, after multiple conflicts they were forced to start anew in the current site of Arcadia.

Turned out that the dragon tamer was a close friend of some families of the village, he deliberately drove them off knowing that the Tyrant Mountain contained “Phas Gas”. The “Phas Gas” is an expensive commodity in the Magic Kingdom, and a big corporation “The Barren” is notorious for opening up mining facilities in post “accidental” sites.

The dragon tamer knew that the villagers would defend their village at all costs, so he created problems to gradually accustomed them with living in the strategic and fertile land of the current city of Arcadia.

By the time the villagers had established a decent emergency settlement there, the dragon tamer unleashed his adult red dragon and destroyed the remaining city. Everyone has been evacuated then including their valuables. After their evacuation, he prevented anyone from ever entering the site.

After two months, the mountain erupted. Everyone believed that the Tyrant Mountain was not vulcanic, but later then convinced that it was a mistake. The Barren then came heroically to bravely set up a mining site there, creating jobs for the community.

In future investigation during the time of the main hero, it was later found that the eruption was artificial.

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A young lady was being chased by some lads with superpowers,

The girl seemed like a rookie fighter, she has some martial arts skills, but these lads were overwhelming. It looked like they were vampires. Slowly and relentlessly, they managed to injure her, it was obvious that they were toying with her.

But in a turn of event in the middle of the bullying she escaped, and in what seemed to be a lucky coincidence, she managed to bring along with her (snatched) a pearl that was carried by one of the lads.

The guy seemed troubled by this and threatened her to return the pearl while chasing her in a terrifying speed.

She dropped the pearl on the ground and hid herself, she seemed to be really exhausted.

The lad took the pearl from the ground and smiled… suddenly the girl jumped from a terrace of a building while stabbing him on the shoulder, piercing all the way through. She soon left her knife and ran away again. The knife tore what seemed to be a compartment and exposed a strange item hung on his back.

The lad was trying to chase her but his friends stopped him for some reason. The girl ended up being let go and she ran into the woods… she drew some figures from multiple trees and formed some line formations. Turned out it was a healing technique, a powerful healing incantation.

Meanwhile the vampires were distracted by what seemed to be a powerful mysterious shadow, and when they were not looking, the shadow snatched away the strange item at the vampire's back and ran away. Immediately after, the shadow turned back and used the item to emit a powerful ray, hitting the vampire at the chest and made a small hole in his light armor, but it did not pierce through him. Then the shadow vanished without a trace.

The snatched item seemed to be even more important than the pearl for him. He went on a rampage to find the mysterious shadow, searched high and low with incredible speed, but could not find it. Then after realizing that he had lost it, he transformed into a large flying monster and threatened the whole city to find and surrender the black creature with the stolen item.

Most cities usually were assigned at least one powerful protector by its kingdom, and this one was no exception. The monster had triggered the protector to step up.

Not far from the city inside the jungle, the girl dropped her façade, turned out she was a floating sky person. Everything she did was purposeful, even the shadow who stole the item, really was her conjured up illusion.

The illusion had dropped the item somewhere and disappeared. She deactivated it without taking any care for the item, despite all the trouble. Laughing mischievously, she flied away swiftly. Turned out she only cared for the item in order to make the vampire lads mad, typical sky people, the item itself wasn’t really important for her.

- note: tobe continued here...

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There is a SkyGod person named Prometheus, he fell in love with a Love Below girl. He "stole" his own computer from the Floating Sky (Land) and thought her programming. 

After some years, both of them developed this thing called the cloud of consciousness. The cloud of consciousness enabled them to move from a body to another freely. So they could plant a body in a city, and then another body in another city at the opposite site of the world, and move between them interchangeably seamlessly. 

This invention somehow got noticed by Mercurius, another SkyGod person. Mercurius is a celibate God who likes to travel the Love Below. He could move really fast and he hates travelling in groups because he had to move slower. He saw the impact of the share market game the Gods are playing. He thinks that the whole favor pool needs to be reduced but renewed every period. By doing this the world would become a more interesting place. But other Gods dismissed him because they all are in the momentum of beating each other up... they already set up their own schemes to win the game and they had to see it through. So while waiting for the Armageddon to happen, he went on a drink with Prometheus to talk about the invention and ways the Love Below could participate in the renewing of "favors" which is the currency of the floating land. 

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No one knew about this except for the fairy elf, creatures believed to be make-believe creatures. That there is a world tree that bear the fruit of life. The fruit of life also grant immortality and supernatural abilities. Even though the technology of the SkyGods could compete with this ancient tree, but there is more to the tree than just the fruit of life. 

Beneath the world tree is the network of fairy spores, these spores took various physical forms. Some specialized into wires, some specialized into nodes, some specialized into fairy flies which are the fairy elves. The network spans all over the world from an end to another end, to all directions of the land, from islands to islands.

The physical bodies of the network are what's known to people, but what they didn't know is that the network is sentient. The World Tree and other regular trees of the world communicates with one another using this network, but the network itself have souls, multiple individuals and personalities taking charge or power over different networks at different times. 

Sometimes they moved into the mind of a fairy elf, the other times to another. The fairy elves looked like elliptical bodies with feet which faces looked like half a circle, they themselves are not living beings, they are vessels to these personalities. Some of these personalities entered human brain and created a subnetwork in attachment to the brain. Even though communications with the main network would be slow since it must waited for another branches to be eaten, for the messages to be excreted... but they are there watching over things slowly gaining influence one way or the other. 

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The will of the fairies:

For aeons the will of the fairies have been kept secret from other forms of beings. As an example one of the will was for the network to not to get tortured. The network felt pain everytime their nodes got eaten or cut down. Some of the nodes were made to be eaten for the sake of exploration of the world and the growth of the network, but some of the nodes were not. When some animals cut and ate the nodes, the network would felt all sorts of discomforts. So the council of the elders passed the protocol that included infiltration into these "torturers" brain so they wouldn't become smarter, then the development of the "predators" of these "torturers" the kind that would find the taste of these forbidden nodes to be repulsive while preferring the taste of the reproductive nodes more. These predators were not hindered from becoming smarter. 

Another hidden will was the war and famine of the human race who were seen as a threat. After sometime some of the predators became smarter than the others, some even became smarter than the smarter ones. At the beginning of humanity, a spying elf noticed that a couple of creature gained the understanding of justice. However as suspected they weren't immune to the evil that comes with it. Knowing this the network took this matter on conflicting notes, some wanted to nurture the humans while teaching them how to communicate with the network, some said that they needed to keep the humans away from peace and prosperity and eternal life. Not all of them agreed to the later but considering the threat they couldn't offer any better alternatives. They wouldn't want the humans to access the network maliciously. So as an early measure they prevented the network from producing sufficient nutritious fruits / reproductive nodes enough for the needs of humanity. That means cutting the supplies for other creatures as well, and so is the way things went in this world of this story. 

(Edit: Writer's message: This is just an imaginative scenario, personally I believe in Jesus and the point of view of Inclinations, so I'm not suggesting that this scenario is religiously proper).

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Sometimes through the progression of the story, the economy of the countries Love Below developed into this:

- Credits given is adjusted to inflation/deflation rates. So if there were inflation, the principal would increase accordingly, if there were deflation the principal would decrease accordingly. 

- Distributors moved on from buying goods from the factory to just storing and displaying the goods. The scheme is consignment. 

- People use the golden sticker system where through social media, every successful transactions were marked by the exchange of each parties' personal marks. These marks are permanently displayed in a section of their individual profile pages. The people want to accumulate as much of these marks as possible, since companies tend to consign their best of technologies to the demographics of those with the most amounts and the most valuable accumulations of marks, also the most relatable to them. 

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At the end of an episode we have chibi prometheus and chibi mercurius doing educational gag about companies and the share market. Chibi prometheus explains a basic concept and chibi mercurius explains the relationships and the implications of the concept for companies. But chibi mercurius often get things upside down and chibi prometheus made fun of him while correcting his logic. 

This episode prometheus explains the idea of elasticity of demand and supply, chibi mercurius explains about wacc and the implications of the elasticity of demand and supply to wacc. But as usual prometheus made fun of his mistakes and made obvious of the correct logic. 

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One of the business Prometheus run is the Ambience restaurant. This restaurant is a little bit like a food court but it is a high end restaurant that outsourced 2 chefs and has 2 kitchens. At the end of the month they would compare sales and the winner gets to continue his trade at 50% rent while the loser paid 150% times of the rent fee and got replaced by another challenger the next month. 

The Restaurant has a waterfall in the middle and various vegetations, it played the recordings of bird sounds and it smelled great. Eating there would have 2 separate tabs, 1 tab for the food, and the other tab for the Ambience and it is rated per units of time. 

The Restaurant has the back side, which is a cheap side where aromas from the food in the kitchens were channeled. Customers in this side were served cheap food, usually rice and nori spreads, potato curry, or vegetables. However the aromas made the experience 2 times more pleasant.

Waitresses of the restaurant are strong people, almost as strong as the royal guard. But they hid it so no one could obviously noticed. 

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On the other side of the world Prometheus and his wife run the TBOM playground. TBOM is where people could come and play in a tournament every day. Players paid the entrance fee which was actually a bet on themselves, because in the end of the tournament, the winner gets 60% of the total entrance fee for the particular game. 

TBOM playground hosted all kinds of games, from chess and card games, to athletic games, as well as martial arts sparring. As long as there were enough people registered for a tournament, the tournament would be run for the day. 

There was also a section of the vicinity where people could play free games and practice. In here people usually talk about news and meet new friends.  

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The deal between Mars and Mercurius:

As the well respected overseer of the share market, Mars could single-handedly dictates the opinions of many Gods if he wanted to. For this reason Mercurius approached him and asked if humans from the Love Below could participate in the share market game. At First, Mars laughed at him and gave him a you've become so pathetic look on his face, but then he said it out loud "Mercurius oh how far have you fallen, you stupid pathetic God". Even though he expected this but Mars' despise is nothing an anticipation could perceive, broken in spirit, Mercurius stammered while trying to convince Mars that he knows a potential person that could beat even Zeus in this game. 

"Zeus? Ha! that old man can't even type, you think I wouldn't be insulted with this Mercurius? You think me, Mars, would sway my position just because you invoked Zeus' name?
I suppose you're going to say something smart before I kill you... right?"

"Your Highness," Mercurius kneeled... "If the lad beat Zeus in a period, he would be more interested to play... and he would form a team that would support him."

"I see..." Mars said

Mars shifted his gaze up a little bit... 

"Your thoughts must have gone beyond my perception now Your Highness..."

"And yet, you've perceived that it is so... Mercurius." Mars tapped Mercurius on his shoulder

"Hmmm... Alright, I'll send someone to talk to him, lets see if he would do something... interesting."

"Why don't I be that someone?" said Mercurius now with regained confidence

"Hahaha... of course of course, I see that you too have some more interesting things in your pathetic little head. Yes... go to him, and tell him I send you. 

Oh, and as always your presence answer to opportune moments. I have some news about Hades I want you to deliver to him."

"What that of it?..." 

Mars lowered his voice this time and Mercurius seemed to have sudden change of concerned expression... but then he regained his calm and had his diligent look on his face again. 

"Right away your highness..."

Mercurius left in a blink, leaving Mars gazing far beyond the walls of his resident. 

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"So how did it go?" Prometheus asked

"It went very well..." Answered Mercurius cheerfully

"Very well?"

"Yes... apparently some things have happened that made him fully on to the proposal, he didn't even asked me of my motives."

"What happened?"

"He's been told that Hades has made a summer pavilion in the underworld"

"... Oh no..."

"Yes!"

"And what leverage does he have?"

"Likely the game..."

And both of them said together, "He's going to challenge Zeus in the game!"

"Hahaha oh I see..." said Prometheus. "So Mars wants this to happen as quick as possible to motivate Zeus to get better at the game". 

"That's right, and likely he doesn't want the news of the challenge to spread..."

"Oh, so..."

"I don't know yet, I suppose I should suggest Mars to request for Hephaestus to build a tower here"

"Of course, that is a very good idea... and should I provide the computer?"

"No you shouldn't reveal yourself!" said Mercurius with concerned look. "He would've handled it I'm sure, it is Mars after all"

"Right... you're right"

"Yeah don't worry about that"

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Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are three brothers and they are kings of their own domains. Poseidon, formally called Neptune, lead the domain of Atlantis located at the pit of the ocean. Hades, formally known as Pluto lead the underworld which are caves inside the floating land. Zeus, was formally called Jupiter, but he decided that every moment of his presence is formal, even for his family, so the name Zeus is just as formal.

The floating sky are islands that float high above the sky. Too far from sight if you lived on the surface of the earth. But there is a mini continent where most of the cities reside and inside the island there is a hollow cave almost as large as the island itself, and that is where the underworld lies. 

After Zeus and Hades became savvy with computer based technologies, they decided to visit Poseidon. Poseidon vs the two of them always compete on which domain is more advanced than the other. It is inevitable whenever any of them would meet for whatever occasions. This time, it is indeed to invite Poseidon to the Share Market game. 

Atlantis has always been proud for their engineering advancements. They are at the bottom of the ocean but they managed to create transparent domes that could withstand the massive pressure. They regulated the flow of water in and out, desalinated it, and use the water pressure as a source of energy for their daily needs. 

Poseidon welcomed their brothers as they visited, and show them around the capital city of Atlantis (The name of the capital is the same with the name of the country). Purposefully took the longest encircling route before arriving at the middle of the palace, Poseidon seemed to had no reservations in bragging and boasting. Both of his brothers held their cool with willpower suited for the supreme leaders, and when they reached their brothers' chamber, they started to pull out a laptop. 

Poseidon was perplexed with what's in front of him, and his jaw dropped when they played him videos of computer based lifestyle in the floating land. Never before Poseidon saw a moving picture, not mentioning at the level of realism that's unparalleled by any artist in his domain. His brothers laughed at him and went as far as calling the Atlantis a humble village and Poseidon a village boy every time the video displayed a computer based inventions of some kind.  

In the end they talked to him about the share market and how it has the potential to make or break "Gods" or the people of power. Zeus also talked about the potential of colonizing the "Love Below" through proxies, since the people of the floating sky were not allowed to visit down and the people of atlantis were not allowed to visit up. Hades talked about the rumors of strange creatures with small bodies and supernatural powers starting to cause some unheard of phenomenon in nature. Poseidon agreed to "look into it". Then at this point, both Zeus and Hades knew that Poseidon has became obsessed with the computers. They gave him the laptop.

As they bid their farewells,

Poseidon: I'm looking forward for our next meeting brothers

Zeus: You too old man, hurry up and build the chamber of youth I showed you, the blue print is in the computer, I'm tired of you looking like a muscular lumps of skins. 

Hades: I'll miss you brother, visit us next time

Poseidon: I will certainly. But have you figured out yet about the floating land? why did they fly? We here in Atlantis never acted without reason, we engineered our own existence...

Hades: Oh here we go again..

Zeus: If they were to fall, then they'll fall, we will always have your support here in the village, right brother?

Poseidon: Just make sure when it fell, it fell on the water so I could pick you guys right down...

Zeus: Alright brother, unfortunately I don't have as much time to waste as yours. See you later

Poseidon: Indeed you guys are much of a waste of time for me boys, good bye

So off Zeus and Hades went with their huge number of armies, causing intense streams in the ocean and big waves on the surface due to their movements. As they emerged from the water and flew to the sky, the ocean looked like a sky full of fireworks that emitted people out of them. Then a rainbow appeared soon after...

Unperplexed with the sight, Zeus and Hades still annoyed by Poseidon's remarks about the mystery of the floating sky;

Zeus: Always send us off with that ominous talk, always. One day I'm going to kill him 

Hades: I will not let you have the honor Zeus

...

Zeus: You mean you're going to protect him or you're going to get him first?

Hades: (stared at Zeus with upset look on his face)

Zeus: Well he has been an immortal being for quite some time now, so there's one for everybody, hahaha

Hades: Well said...

Zeus: But it is strange that up until now, we knew so much about science

Hades: You mean Athena knew so much about science

Zeus: ...Ok Yes, and medicine as well, but yet we

Hades: you mean Athena... 

Zeus: Hades please I'm in no mood...

Hades: Athena hasn't figured out why the islands are floating, yes and I blame you Zeus for such trivialities.

Zeus: Oh? blaming Zeus for everything, a trite as usual Hades

Hades: The only other person that might help her to figure out the matter and you went after him. Insecure much, Zeus?

Zeus: You mean Prometheus? huh, the old knave is useless, nobody needs him. He is nothing compared to Athena's knowledge and even his insights compared to the fate sisters, the only useful things he could do well, are the things he do for himself. He can't scale up his talents, he can't compete with the other officials and he knows it. He could only ran, and ran he did.  

Hades: I don't see anything wrong with doing things for one's self. Your lack of wisdom however, sticks out like a sore thumb.

Zeus: (Picked up his gun) Now and here, you've decided to reveal your treacherous wiles. 

Hades: Treacherous? Treacherous? How ridiculous, but fine (Picked up his bident). It has been a long time Zeus, one way or the other I will have my wife in entirety. 

Zeus: Oh I see, about this again. Then, come and take it Hades!

Hades: Yaaaaaaah!                                                                   Aaaaaaaaargh!  :Zeus

Troop Captains: Scramble now! Spare your lives! 

And on both of the Lords fought each other with awestrucking speed and deadliness. None of their troops remained in the vicinity, they wouldn't be able to leave unharmed otherwise. So both Hades and Zeus were left by themselves without anyone else knowing what happened during the fight and what's going to happen after.

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Sometimes after the visit, Poseidon and his men managed to recreated the computers. And for the sake of the fun, they created a computer not powered by electricity but by steam. It is actually what we know as a calculator, and it is not the kind that used numbers, it used beads therefore it is a sempoa. 

Prometheus also created a similar kind of computer since he had to hide the existence and his knowledge of computers. He created a giant computer that doesn't use electricity, but used the waterfall in his restaurant. It is a giant computer that has keyboard of dots and lines and multiple screens interconnected with each other. A screen in the main restaurant, another in the aroma restaurant, and one each in the kitchens. The keyboard buttons are big and very hard to press, the display doesn't present letters nor numbers but codes of dots and lines (morse codes). Only the waitresses could use the "computer" since they all are well trained in kung fu, including in particular the art of pressure points. 

One time there was a boy with shining eyes and loud strong voice tried to press the buttons, he couldn't. He asked one of the waiter why he couldn't press it like you guys did. The waiter answered that you need to unlock it first. For onlookers it seemed that the keyboard has a lock that only could be opened by the waiters and the waitresses, but the boy understood that it means something inside himself that needs to be unlocked. It was his Chi-Kung, and at that very moment he intuitively completed the first step in unlocking his. The boy's name was Chinmi. 

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Demeter's Silos

Each SkyGod person has special powers called favor. Favors could be materialized into items and weapons. These took the lifeforce of the SkyGod to make and most of the time they were very rare items. 

Zeus made a currency called, jolt and it is backed by Zeus' favor. But other Gods could make their own currencies as well and it would be measured in relative to jolt. In order for a SkyGod person to tie the value of their currency to jolt is to store their items in Demeter's Silo. Demeter then performed valuation of their items against Zeus' and then issued a statement of valuation. Anyone who has certain amounts of the SkyGod's currency could directly trade jolt from Demeter's Silos in accordance to the valuation. 

Some Gods managed to have their currency exceeded Demeter's valuations in the economy. Usually these Gods performed extra service for those who bought goods/services from them using their own money. When the market valued their currency above Demeter's jolt valuation, they could rest assure that they are materially wealthier than before. See, every time their money were used to buy from themselves, instead of reusing it later, they "expired" some of them at Demeter's Silo, the administration then registered for the "expiration" and asked the God whether he/she would appreciate all of the rest of their money currently in circulation or to issue a new currency (it is forbidden to depreciate/dilute the current value of their money in circulation). 

Gods often appreciated the value of their money in circulation to make their helpers happier and so increased their reputations. After this the new currency they created would be valued even more than before. To amplify this some Gods even added more items into Demeter's Silo for the sake of their reputation. 

However not all Gods were benefited from this scheme. Mars for example always got his currency redeemed directly to Demeter's Silo. This makes Demeter held ownership to a lot of his items. So this situation contributed to Mars' next decision in the share market... 

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Mars' diversification

Before the game, Demeter's Silo was the sole supplier of foods and other supplies for Mars' army. But using the premise of diversification, Mars invested a lot in military supplies made by companies from down below. Noticing this, Demeter took offense, and decided to make things difficult against Mars. She always went against Mars' suggestions in the court of Zeus and created policies that were in opposition to Mars' interests every chances she got. 

Mars being Mars would not meet her in the middle, his down below investments in agriculture, mining, and weaponry intensified like never before. At one point he even requested Zeus to allow his currency to be used by the people of the below world, this also bear the purpose of setting up competitions against Demeter, but Zeus wouldn't allow it at the time. 

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The Generation of Hope

One location in the down below world is/are the Islands of Dreams. The people of the Island of Dreams had this policy called "Invasive Innovation Grace Period". Despite the name, the Grace period is for the existing businesses to adjust their resources accordingly with the incoming "Invasive" innovation. 

Sometimes you could have a business already taking a lot of credits/liabilities and employed a lot of people that it became too big to fail. As soon as a competitive innovation entered the market, the economy of the particular region would be disrupted. So the Island of Dreams gave the power to the regional leaders, or the regents to give some grace periods before the innovation could hit the market. 

When a starting innovative business decided to enter a region, they would talk to the regent and the regent would post their features in the bulletin board of the city hall. The representatives of the people would gather the next week to talk about how long the grace periods should be. Not only that, they would also set conditions on how the term could be shortened, such as business acquisitions, employment acquisitions, bail money, etc. When an innovation decided to enter, they have to sign a contract that can not be cancelled except for a cost. The contract allows cancellation or reconsideration if before they hit the market another innovation came for the same demographic... by then it would be taken as the same case and would be discussed under the same occasions. 

The initial idea was to have the people who really liked the innovation to come together and bail them in. However in practice a lot of corruption happened and the representatives of the people ended up being those who made things difficult for the economy as a whole. 

At some point in time, some people started to give thanks to their heroes and veterans. People like freedom fighters, healers, firefighters, guard officidetectives/field police officers, and other heroes. And they realized that they ended up having the same spirit in the end. They all wanted freedom, self autonomy, increase in prosperity, fair and just environments, and better health physically and mentally. Their friendships were so intense because they realized that they wanted the same things, those things are realistic to obtain, and together they would be able to made it happen. Never did any of them took advantage over another, their solidarity, their brotherhood/sisterhood, the empathy they had for each other, were all fruitful in making good things happen. They all improved the livelihood of one another, never the other way around. "Such relationships are perpetually better than sex", said them all deep inside their hearts. 

So together they band together to "pay the price", and they ended up successful in increasing the flow of innovative goods and services in. They actually made it so that those innovations weren't invasive to the economy, some instead cherished by the existing businesses due to the productive way the innovation connected with the rest of the people.  

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He was a merman boy, raised in a sanctuary, like a big lake/garden where there were a lot of mermaids.

The boy swam upwards, emerged on the surface, and jumped high into the air. His tail was flapping vigorously, a trident on his hand, and the sound of his laughter filled the whole area.

It was an impressive scenery, but all the mermaids were indifferent. As if this boy were not making any scene at all. It was an impressive jump, and it was done by the only male creature on the scene… surely it was incredible, at least interesting… but how no one displayed any attention to him at all was even more incredible.

His upper body was identical to human’s except where his ears were, there were gills… gills and 2 blossoming fins, one for each side, and they were flapping. It seemed like their vibrations were in tune with the boy’s joy and laughter.

Soon the boy approached the land area of the garden, and instantly his tail transformed into legs.

As soon as then, the mermaids jumped into the lake like a swarm of fish in a migration season. Indeed, it should have been noticeable how weird it was that he was the only one swimming in such a big lake surrounded by mermaids.

The boy walked to the edge most area of the sanctuary, where other mermans were waiting for him. He wore some clothes and they rode their horses through some roads of abandoned settlements. Again he was at the front laughing joyfully. 

Ardramelk: Brother, what are you going to say to father this time?

Rade: He is in the middle of the diplomatic venture to the Islands of Dreams, no actually now the Land of the Dragons? He's not going to make things easy for us

Miru: Don't worry leave it to me, you are not going to be sorry... but Islands of Dreams, Land of the Dragons? You mean Arcadia right? how's that have anything to do with each other?

Rade: The Red Dragon... 

Ardramelk: It's a complicated story, he's just going to explain it wrong

Miru: Hahaha!

Rade: What? 

Ardramelk: This is not the time to correct you all the time, we need to get pass the haunted forest soon!

                  Chant the trident Miru!

Miru: Alright 

The boy is Miru, the prince of the mermaid oasis, hidden in the desert of storms, within the obscurity of now abandoned the city of rails. 

Generations ago the Kingdom of Magic abducted hundreds of mermans and mermaids for their own purposes, one being for their own entertainment purposes. But the mermaids possessed ancient magical knowledge no human magicians are familiar with, and they managed to escape while destroying the King's castle at the time. 

They couldn't stay in land for too long but they avoided the ocean knowing that the army would chase them there. So they went the opposite direction. 

Luckily for the mermans, there was a powerful hero among them. The hero coordinated spells to use for the escape, such as barrier spells for containing and preserving humid airs between themselves... cloaking spells, movement speed spells, clairvoyance spells... interlacing their chanting together to preserve mana while he himself covered mistakes and exhaustions of their magicians using his enormous pool of mana.

They arrived at an oasis, not so big back then and decided to stayed there permanently. The hero created a new magic that directed all the rainwater in the vicinity to the oasis. He taught their magicians how to cast them as well as coordinating other magicians to take turns to keep the humidity barriers up and use the same barrier to prevent the water from flowing away.  

Because of the sanctuary, the mermans and mermaids now lived normally and even had children together. They cultivated plants and reptiles for their food using their magic to increase the rate of reproductions. 

Sometime later, The Barren the mining company, came to establish a big mining site. At first the oasis were protected by invisible magic. But the hero himself went out to create a peace treaty with the company, and they coexisted for a while. 

Fast forward until the time of the princes, yes they are children of the hero who now is the king of the oasis. And now the King is set to open new diplomatic channels with other kingdoms, as well as gathering strong allies to support them in opposition of the magic kingdom. 

Ardramelk is the oldest son, then Rade, then Miru. But the one who is the brightest and has the strongest in magic is Miru. Miru is still 13 years old, but he could get along well with adults as equal, even though, not all the time. Miru is a good scholar but more than anything he is a natural adventurer. Quick in identifying traps, identifying monsters, assessing situations of newfound areas then setting up party formations in accordance with them. Miru has accomplished 20 sapphire level missions, with only experience in completing 3 lower level missions.

Ardramelk worried about his youngest brother, and set to keep an eye on him. Rade was interested in mechanical tools and machines, including magical knowledge and skills in relation to them, he is hard to socialize and most of the time hang attached to Ardramelk wherever he goes. Ardramelk himself is an advanced level fighter adventurer, but everyone's impression of him were reserved, he was more of a mysterious persona to the adventurer community.

------------------------------------------

The Haunted Forest is a mysterious forest where a lot of people went missing. People who were there described it as a dense forest where lights didn't come through, a lot of poisonous animals, insects, and plants were there, and also large beasts no one has ever seen before in another place. 

Ardramelk and Rade chose to pass through the forest because it is the shortest route between the ocean and the oasis without passing through any of the Magic Kingdom's territory. For ordinary people, it is impossible to mount through there not mentioning galloping. But Rade had an energy canon that blasts through the vegetations, making a path for them through. But the path was temporary, as the forests grew itself in a matter of minutes, some trees even pierced through the ground instantly killing any animals or humans in its way. Without the light from the sun, light magic is required to illuminate the path, and that's what the chanting of the trident is for. Enchanted with light magic, the trident would illuminate anything it's facing towards and anything it's leaving behind.

Ardramelk: Rade, the canon!

Rade: Already aimed! 

Miru and Ardramelk: Fire Rade!

Rade fired his canon, Miru was right behind him holding his trident backside forward to keep Rade in place against the recoil. The blast appeared like a giant ray of reddish light, and it incinerated everything in it's path. The recoil actually sent Rade flying from his horse backwards, but Miru's trident was pushing him forward stronger with the power of a magical thrusts. 

Miru: Wow, that was BLASTING of the world!

Rade: Hahaha, BLASTING of the world! 

Ardramelk: Ok guys stay prepare your cutters, the trees are coming

They were galloping at full speed and it was an astonishing experience. Rade made the horses armor that not only supports and protects their frame, but also enhanced their strength and speed twice their usual. Miru casted a little swiftness magic and aerodynamic shell in front of them increasing their swiftness even more. 

But the speed means great danger in the haunted forest, especially after the incineration. Surely, soon after barrages of spikes shooting from the ground, from the sides, from all directions towards them... as if they were directed with malice. 

Rade: Brother in front of us a branch is coming soon!

Miru: Windcutter!

Ardramelk: Cross Slices!

And indeed a huge branch had already grown across their path at their eye level. Luckily they managed to cut it to pieces at the perfect time. 

Miru: I think it's time Rade!

Rade: Alright, I'm pulling it up

Ardramelk: I'm behind you brother!

It was only minutes after they entered the forest, but the trees have regrown covering the path again.

Miru: Rade! Aim a bit left

Rade: Huh? Why?

Miru: Hurry up just do it!

Ardramelk: Wow, (now Ardramelk maneuvered his horse just a little bit to the right of Rade, while keeping a distance behind of him)

Rade: Fire!!!

Rade Fired his canon again a little bit to the right now, and he's doing this while galloping forward at full speed as Ardrarmelk used his sheathed sword to keep him on his horse. 

Ardramelk: Wow what is that!

Miru: I knew it

The brothers looked to their right as a giant glowing horselike creature with what appeared like a dragon's moustache growing on the top of its head like a giant hair. 

Rade: No time for distraction guys! Branches ahead!

Ardramelk: Cross Slice!

Miru: Windcutter!

---------------------------------------------

The King of the Oasis set out a journey to find other mermans and mermaids in the sea. He discovered that crossing through the haunted forest would lead to the ocean without crossing paths with the Magic Kingdom's territory. Upon finding the Ocean he switched his legs to fish tails and swam into the deep like a kid, he with his 10 other people. 

But in his journey towards his previous home he never came accross any mermaids. And on the way he passed through the Islands of Dreams where it peaked his interests. After he visited his old home he realized that the place has been abandoned. He suspected this, because the Magic Kingdom has been hunting mermaids ever since the time they were captured. So he left the place in sadness and set for the Islands of Dreams. 

Travelling in the Islands of Dreams he found that the place were ruled by multiple "Gangsters", some are dangerous but some are friendly. He found some wounded people on the streets and healed them. Turned out they were members of the Yuwana Gang one the prominent gang of the area but one of the friendly ones. 

The King stayed in hospitality of the Yuwana Gang for 2 months before setting back to the mainland. 

After he reached the land he saw dragons flying in the sky and decided to follow them. But those Dragons were passing through one of the main city of the Magic Kingdom and he decided to cut his path there. He and his men put on some disguises while making their way towards the Oasis when they saw some carts being pulled by raptors. 

They wanted to head to the Tyrant Mountain but no escort companies were available at the time. So the disguising King and his party escorted this merchant to the Tyrant Mountain. 

There the King was astonished at how different they do things from most people at the city and at the Islands of Dreams, and how close they are to Dragons, even making friends with them. 

He undisguised himself and his party and went straight to the major of Arcadia's residence, where he presented mermaid scales and the medicinal herbs of the Yuwana Gangs, as well as cooked for them Rendang, a recipe from the Islands of Dreams. The Party was warmly welcomed and they stayed there for 1 and a half month before returning to the Oasis. 

The Red Dragon and the Dragon Tamer one day visited the Major and his wife, who are the runaway nobles that had built the city. The Red Dragon and the Dragon Tamer were served Rendang and they loved it a lot. She was so glad and wanted more of the Rendang, but the cook said some the ingredients were only available in the Islands of Dreams and they have ran out of them. 

So she flew to the Islands of Dreams to search for the ingredients. Before being seen by people she transformed herself into the human form and made her way into a city in one of the Islands. After some searching, she found that all of the ingredients were available at the city market and she got overjoyed, she was preparing to buy some huge sums of them until a person suddenly took her full attention away from the transaction. It was the disguising Lich King, acted like a commoner doing some shopping in the market. She sensed a grave danger from the guy proceeded to stalked him. 

The Lich King realized that he was being stalked, then he purposefully led her to his camp, where his newly found gangs have set up some traps. She ended up fell into one of the trap and forced to transform into her dragon form in order to escape. She was in such rampage she ended up killing everyone there leaving one who is the Lich King. Using a divine weapon, the Lich King managed to capture her and imprisoned her somewhere unknown. 

The Red Dragon and the Dragon Tamer were connected telepathically. Even though she was paralyzed and imprisoned in an unknown place, she still could communicate with him. So then, the Dragons from the Dragon village, and the heroes from Arcadia were set together in full force to free the Red Dragon. They gathered and camped at the shore facing the Islands of Dreams, which is also a part of the Magic Kingdom's territory. 

The word of this contention reached The King of the Oasis, he was surprised and realized that the Magic Kingdom could use this event to took over some territories and resources from the two disputing regions. Deeply concerned with this risk, he gathered all of the merman and the fighting mermaids to set sail and joined the heroes of Arcadia at the shore. "This could be an opportunity" thinking he, planning to draw peace between the two regions and formed an alliance against the Magic Kingdom.

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Unicorn Raiders

Unicorns are rare beasts that have the power to change the weather. They are strong and fast, like to travel around the world and whenever they are around, the weather changed. Unicorns didn't like being close to other creatures including their own kind, so when they saw people or other large creatures they would run away. When there were sudden change of weather, people would know that there must be a unicorn nearby. If the weather was to their liking, people would try not to chase the unicorn away, so instead of "finding" them, they would only see if they could "spot" them from a far. But if the weather was not to their liking, people would search for the unicorn responsible and chased it away. 

There is a group of noblemen and knights from around the world that called themselves Unicorn Raiders. With their advanced battle skills and magic they sought to capture unicorns. Their purpose is to scoff on commoners, to accentuate the commoner's weakness and patheticness. How is this related? They started by capturing a unicorn, and then drugged it so it wouldn't fought back and ran away. They kept it hidden through some means and leave it in abandoned infertile lands. Because the presence of a unicorn changed the weather, the land eventually turned fertile and people would come to live and took refuge. The noblemen would visit regularly to feed and drugged the unicorn every now and then just to make sure it is still alive. While the unicorn is around, people plant crops and breed cattle, some even set up shops and inns and restaurants for the locals and visitors. But when the time comes, the Raider would took away the unicorn and watched as the village crumbled. That's their enjoyment.

---------------------------------------

Why father? Why did you do this? You're my father, you're the best, why? 

(*The father sighed)

Oh my son, (*he dispersed firebolt from his machinist's bracelet and destroyed his son's item box)

Nooooo! I... I... WHY!!!

(*The son's party is trying to take him out of the secret cave)

Have I spoiled you son, well so it be, do you know what it takes to be the major of the capital while being the richest man in the country at the same time? How could you know? How could you know? well if you do then its my failure, if you don't then they would say that I am. Huh imbeciles

(*A woman in the group amplified her illusion magic while the rest of the party was trying to complete their makeshift escape tunnel. The room was glowing from magical radiation, the spinning machine was dispersing magic made out of huge carcasses of dragons and dragonic matters)

So you rather take the lives of sentient beings, negotiable beings like us father, they are my friends! (*the son was tearing up furiously). You rather do all of this abominations than stepping down of the city...

Why YES you stupid spoiled insane trash!!! (*his madness was apparent while his anger was unsightly). There are priorities of everything, whereas you, you would do better to be of amongst those that are few after me rather than at the bottom of the bottom pile like you'll be as soon as this is over. (*The room's glow turned half darker and half lighter, the color became even more chaotic, the illumination made as if the party was facing the apparition of a demon in front of them).

YOU RATHER deceive them, YOUD RATHER have them destroy everything!

(*the major laughed condescendingly) YES!! why is this so hard for you? After all that I've build, to see the passage of time rendered them less relevant and less relevant, curse all the gods with their indifferences! Say I should let go and gave everything away just so that they would do better?! what? WHAT ABOUT MEEEE!!! then he triggered the machine's power to start to deliver explosions and fire towards the castle, their own home. 

STOPPP!! Father! (the party had to use their binding item to restrained him and took him away from the cave) 

---------------------------------------

When Miru learned teleport magic, he went back to the desert to draw a teleport magic circle in his home. When he arrived, all mermans were in a trip to the port for the Island of Dreams campaign. So he went for a walk. The mermaid overseer offered him to use the lake, since the King forbade mermaids and mermans to use the lake at the same time in order to prevent uncontrolled newborns, Miru accepted. 

He swam vigorously and ended up decided to make a magic circle right at the bottom of the lake. What he didn't know was, his father the King had prepared a giant magic circle at the whole lake so that when he got to his old village, he would transported all of the mermaids and abandoned the desert. No one felt the need to inform Miru about this. 

In the event that the merman army was gathering at the port of the Magic Kingdom's territory, Miru and Rade were called to the capital of the Magic Kingdom, Caerleon, as diplomats, in order to make sure that the army wouldn't do anyhing hostile against the magic kingdom. 

When the King arrived at his old village he was deeply shocked that the summoning failed. Desperately he tried and tried, almost spent all of his mana, to no avail. Miru, has ruined the circle.

He needed to go back, he thought,
but then he shouldn't, he thought... there might be a war coming and only he could execute his plan. 

Suddenly it dawned on him, time is not in his side for this mission...

But... the confidence in him said... it doesn't mean that hope is not as well...

So he gathered the 10 and ordered 7 of them to gather information from the Island of Dreams and the Magic Kingdom secretly, also among the alliance... he wanted to know whether there were important details have been left out from their considerations. 2 of the 10 he told to find a powerful magician who could examine the teleportation circle and maybe fixed it. It means that they needed to get there somehow as shortest time possible. 

Then he himself with 1 of the ten, travelled to the Yuwana gang's residence as the alliance were about to have a meeting with 20 other gang leaders regarding the situation. 

-------------------------------------------

In Caerleon, Rade and Miru met with 2 young dragons who were talented enough to transform into human forms. They too were "diplomats" in order to make sure the safety of the Magic Kingdom when the dragon horde were to pass their territory in order to reach the port. 

1 of them was a wyvern, the other one were introduced as a land dragon. Wyverns have wings and could fly, while land Dragons couldn't. No one knows including the land dragon kid himself that he is actually a Bahamut. Bahamut is a rare mutation of land Dragons that makes those who has it grew into a massive size, with incredible magical power, and impregnable skins, but then lost its memories at some point after reaching that state.  

A Bahamut is mentioned in the legend as the destroyer of life, the wrath of God, the world's end. 

The reason why they two were qualified enough to be "diplomats" was because they were known as the offspring of the old Dragon village leader, Brere, Brere Ore was her name. Lately as the city of Arcadia grew, scholars from all over the world came to learn more about the dragons... Brere became famous as the face of the Dragon Village since she was the one who converse with the scholars and answered their questions in humanoid form as the representative of the Dragon kind. The ability to shapeshift into a humanoid is rare among the Dragons. But her ability to speak human language came from the dragon tamer, who forced her into learning it. All dragons before that didn't know any human languages. The two young dragons were personally raised by the dragon tamer himself sometime after, so they were quite fluent in the basic human language. 

----------------------------------------------

The 2 of the 10 travelled shores after shores looking for news about a powerful magician. Someone introduced them to a "wise woman" who seemed to know some magic, but she's more of an oracle than a wizard. She told them about some rumors in the northern area, across the sea, that there was a particular person, whom name she knew not, who is able to travel the world in an incomprehensible speed. From whom she heard the news, the person managed to deliver a letter to a sick person, two continents apart, and returned back with an authentic reply in under a day. 

It was Mercurius, but no one knew about him well then. 

So the 2 decided to set sail to the port city of Harbor 7, searching for a restaurant called The Waterfall. She told them that the person is most often seen there but they had to look really hard cause he doesn't present himself to a lot of people, he was not well-known despite of his ability. 

-----------------------------------------------

The two are experienced merman soldiers, actually one of them is a mermaid. They are proficient in all kinds of weapons but they rarely battle with creatures other than monsters. 

After paying for a fisherman's boat, they propelled the ship with their skills and arrived in the Port City Harbor 7 in 2 hours. The fisherman puked at the end of the trip. The trip was such a turmoil, not only because the ship went straight in the face of a giant wave, but the two's coordination were poor and they quarreled the whole trip instead of concentrating in keeping it stable. 

A little bit dizzy, both of them they walked into the midst of the city. There were a lot of street vendors and open markets selling seafood. The smell of sea was strong but not unpleasant. The mermaid freaked out every-time she saw bird poo, considering there are bird poo everywhere she drove the merman crazy.

"What an amazing city..."

"Yeah right! What are these, are these octopus? why did it wearing a hat?"

"Ah really? Let me see..." (proceeded to walk away)

"Huh, oi! where are you go... Aaa! bird poo! Aaaa!"

"I had it with you, shut up! We are supposed to find this guy quick, and you're making a scene"

"They are everywhere blunt nose, they stink, and they stick... ok, if we were to meet this guy, I'm not going to show up with these smell all over my body, and you too blunt head!"

"Stop making big deals out of bird poo, dear ocean! You're ruining my concentration. I want to enjoy this place before we go, ok"

"Alright, alright..." Then she looked around... "Hey, look at that place, isn't that look fit the old lady's description?"

"Where?"

Grabbed his face... "Here... blunt head" 

"Oh... right right that seems so." parrying her hands off of his face "You were looking that way, of course I looked there"

"I was looking at you, before that I looked here. Come... let's go!"

They arrived at what seemed to be an incredibly tall and big building for a restaurant. Surrounded by grass and flowers, with blue ceramic glasses with golden ornaments surrounding the opened gate. The wooden sign at the top of the gate seemed to be hovering instead of hanged. And it hovered below the gate's ceiling instead of above it. 

"Wow! this place is so beautiful"

"Yeah, and the temperature inside seemed to be cooler as well!"

They went in and immediately saw a huge waterfall in the middle of the building. There were butterflies and flowers at the side, mists of water floated above the pool where the water drops, seeping between the feet of the surrounding customers, as they watched while eating their food. 

A waiter welcomed them and showed them a seat for two, not far from the waterfall. Both of them felt out of place with all their sweaty damp clothing and stinky bird poo shoes.

"WHAT?"

"...."

"Stop looking at me like that!"

"...not an ounce of regret of what you said to me?"

"...ok"

"...."

"....Alright, common!"

"Ssssh"

"Huh? what again!"

Put her finger on her mouth and squinted her eyes "Shush! be aware..."

The presence of both of them were being noticed by all the waiter and waitresses in the place, soon they noticed that all of them are high level fighters. 

A waiter come with two glasses of drinks on the tray. It was a cold drink with light brown slightly reddish color. There were a slice of citrus attached on each of them. 

"Please have some drinks before I take your order, mister, madam..."

When both of them took the cups they couldn't move it... it was as if each cups were as heavy as a javelin.  

"It is kind of hard to take, mister..." the mermaid said

"Really? It isn't to me" The merman twisted his hand while holding the cup, channeling an incredible power it created a mini tornado at the bottom of the tray. He then proceeded to took the glass and drunk. Seeing this the mermaid instantly swatted the twister and it dissipated into the air. 

Smiling she looked straight at the waiter's eyes... "Could you help me with it?"

The waiter put the cup at the table and pulled out a note...

"Your order please..."

"We don't have the menu yet..."

"Oh, sorry mister, it is there in front of you." With perplexed look on his eyes he looked down, and the menu is right there, on the top of the table in front of both of them each. 

"Wow, no one told me this is a magic themed restaurant"

"Could you excuse us for a bit, I haven't looked at them yet..."

"Take your time, madam, mister..." and the waiter left. But as he left, the menu also disappeared. 

"What the..." the merman now is highly upset

"What... it is here..." now the menu is right on the top of their lap. 

Seeing this both of their expressions changed, they brightened. So both made their order and waited for the food. 

"Here is your grilled swordfish mister... and here is your blipgrass omelette madam..."

"Thank you..." The mermaid then inhaled the omelette's smoke, faced the waiter and exhaled...

"These are complimentary of the house right?"

The waiter felt his consciousness slipped away, and saliva run down the side of his mouth. Instantly he bit the tip of his tongue and then stick his thumb in the right side of his neck connecting his chin. 

Regained his consciousness he blinked his eyes hard while collecting his thoughts... "SORRY MADAM THE OMELETTE IS NOT COMPLIMENTARY!" he roared. Some of the appliances and cutleries were vibrating because of that. 

Now other waiters and waitresses were busy apologizing to other customers that there were a problem with their "speaker". 

This scene took the interest of Mercurius who were just there not long before... 

As he approached the table, the two merman/mermaids were shocked out of their mind. 

"What is happening Golo?"

"Oh Mister Mercurius, it's nothing, this is just..."

"My King!" , "My King!" both of the merman/mermaid squatted while looking at the ground and wrapped their arms around their knees (this is their way of honoring the King when in legs). 

"Wha, wha... what is this?" Mercurius was perplexed with their behavior...

--------------------------------------

Mercurius was no magician, when comes to teleportation, he is the worst. Even though he had studied magic in the Floating Sky a long time ago, he never used it for his work. His incredible speed was an innate skill, and he used Hephaestus' floating shoes to fly without magic. So when comes to fixing the teleportation circle, Mercurius was the wrong man to ask. But the 2 had grew fond of this person, who looked exactly like their king, and thought of another scheme. 

Mercurius agreed to return with them to the mermaid village, he also seemed to enjoy his time with his new acquaintances, but most of all he was madly curious about this person who looked exactly like him, in gills. 

---------------------------------------

There is an island within the islands of dreams that is not ruled by gangsters. This territory though is quite new, but they had interesting 2 way taxation system implemented which is attractive to other islanders and potentially by the mermans/mermaids and other inhabitants of the world as well. 

The government upon financing their projects didn't immediately spent from the treasury, instead they announced the projects on the tender billboards. Potential tax payers could pledge their tax specifically for certain projects by buying tax bonds. The bonds then could be used to pay tax as alternative to their regular currency. But there's another way of contributing to the projects which is by using the golden badge system, it enabled the people to finance government projects without being given any tax bonds, without being given anything else in return other than their names engraved in the plaque of the finished project. These people are then known by their community as the heroes of the project. 

This voluntary taxation system was introduced later by Mercurius during his venture to the area in the merman campaign. It was actually the golden sticker system implemented by the floating sky's economy. However unlike Mars, the army in this territory is pretty open in utilizing this system. They exposed their success in dealing with monsters, criminals, as well as aggressive gangsters in order to gather more golden badges from the people. They employed bards and storytellers to expose the fierceness and the smartness of their opponents, but rarely told how they managed to beat them, "All of those enemies are just beat by the ingenuity and the hard works of the team", that is their answer if some reporters wanted to know. They opened up museum where visitors could see the technological advancements of the weapons or means of their enemies, as well as the magnificent carcasses of dangerous monsters they neutralized, from the enormous to the microscopic. The museum even had some lounge areas for the "heroes" of the military, from the inside and the "outside" of the institution. Later some of these museums grew into becoming largest shopping malls in the Islands of Dreams.

----------------------------------------

Once upon a time before the SkyGods invented the internet, there was a soldier bee named Janus. Janus was like their peers, was loyal to the Kira Queen, the Queen Bee. But one day something strange happened to him, he started to stopped patrolling, locked himself inside the nest, while refusing to sing (that's how bees in this world talked) with the other bees. 

After a long time, the others accepted the situation as him having a mental problem and moved on from trying to communicate with him. Suddenly then he went missing, turned out he ran to the love below. During his time in love below, he realized what he had been thinking all this time, that he could understand the language of the elves. 

It wasn't a voice, nor a song, he just somehow understood, and the information was even more intense in the down below. He searched towards where the flow (of information) seemed to be the most interesting and he found the world tree, underground. 

Janus: What an amazing view!

Janus observed the network of threads that connected the world three to so many plants, the mycorrhizal network, and learned from a far that not only it delivers the information he was feeling, but also resources and many other delicious and interesting packages from one to another. He was in awe. 

Janus found his way back to his colony, he rushed into the queen's chamber only to find her too busy to even noticed his existence, he was heartbroken but he quickly moved on and found his friends. 

To their surprise Janus looked weird and dirty, for a second there one of them tried to kill him since he seemed like a foreign bee from another colony. With enthusiasm he explained to his friends about what he had found, his friends couldn't believe what they heard. Given his mental illness reputation some of them didn't took him seriously until he brought them outside, then he demonstrated that he knew exactly which fruit was going to be "released" from the tree. They looked at him weird, then he showed that he knew among the flowers, which ones was going to bloom soon and which ones had withered internally, the next day it was apparent that he was not out of his mind. 

The news travelled fast in bee colonies, this one was not an exception. After telling his stories he explained his plan of adventure around the world, and he was looking to teach the others how to "know" the language of the World Tree. 

Long story short, he found himself 11 other bees including some of his friends who actually gets it.  

-----------------------------------------

12 Widows

That's how they called themselves, the 12 Widows. They all were male bees who were broken hearted by the indifference of the queen. They travelled all around the floating sky while "understanding" the information given away by the natural world around them.

Some days later, they stumbled upon an interesting building... the Athena's research university, where they saw Athena and Prometheus and some other people were tinkering with their latest inventions, the Computer. Prometheus was among some other assistants of Athena when the 12 widows observed the final moments they created their second computer. 

Somehow this triggered something inside Janus' head, and he came to approach Prometheus. Prometheus was wary at first, that the bee might attacked him, but soon after he realized that the bee was smart... too smart! and the bee was trying to communicate with him. Prometheus was perplexed and also excited for the encounter, Janus even introduced him to 11 other bees that were like him! "What an amazing discovery" he thought to himself. 

Sometime after they learned how to communicate with each other a bit, Janus learned that the humans communicate with writing, and pictures. "Hmmm, I could use this..." Janus thought to himself. So he dipped his sting in ink, and spent a whole night drawing (helped by his crews).  

The next day Prometheus came to see Janus, and he showed him the picture. He was perplexed at first, but he came to understood that Janus' drawing had computers in it, a lot of computers, connected with lines. He observed how packages being sent from one computer to another, the role of what seemed to be the central computer, where the protocols of the transportations were broadcasted. 

"This is amazing" said Prometheus to himself, and proceeded to praise Janus with the best rewarding gesture he could express. Janus welcomed the appreciation, and now its his que to go. His goal and the 12 Widows were to go down to where the world tree was. After a day of partying with Prometheus, in the Artemis garden, they bode farewell. Prometheus explained the network idea to Athena, while Janus and his twelve crews dove into the love below. 

---------------------------

During their Journey to the world tree, the 12 encountered some adventures with different kinds of insects and predators in their journey. 

After some struggles, at last they managed to reach the world tree. This time Janus and one of his friend came with injuries. They rushed to the center of the world tree asking for help. They were intercepted by some elves, but after some explanations the elves decided to help them, moreover, the elves were astounded how they could understand the way they were communicating with each other. 

The elves reported this to the elders, and they came to each of the bees and healed them. Janus and the others were amazed on their technology, such wound were healed so quickly and they even felt the level of health they've never felt before the short time they've been living. 

The elders manifested themselves in some bodies of elves, but they themselves had no bodies only as parts of the mycorrhizal network. In return of the favor the elders asked Janus if he could stay there for a while. Janus happily accepted. 

Janus turned out to be one very talented individual, after sometime learning firsthand about the mechanisms of the mycorrhizal network, the world tree, and the individuals within the network, Janus invented a way to connect wirelessly to the network using the singing of the bees. 

The elves welcomed this invention with gratitude, they gave Janus high level access to the network where he could set up domains or properties in, buy and sell, and the license to take some amounts of resources away with him if he were to set on a journey somewhere together with his friends.

So not long after that Janus set up his shop where customers could come and listened to the songs of the bees, the stories, and the news.

Somewhere in the future, Janus invented Joo Too Bzda, a network service where customers could directly watched whatever it is that the bees were watching as they were flying around exploring the world. They could watched how flowers looked like while they were blooming under the sun, they watched the human children as they were playing on the fields, and the most exciting but the most regulated ones are the graphic pictures of pollinations as the bees were doing it... only adults were allowed to watch it.  

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Ayame flew swiftly to the sky, smile on her face was so wide it was as if she was laughing and the time stopped around the circumference of her mouth. Clouds after clouds she pierced, there it appeared, the land of the floating sky... flying in magnificence, discreet, but loud in impression. The sound classical music humming as she was approaching, and she flew higher and higher until her altitude surpassed the land... there it appeared, the city of Coco, one of the most famous city in the island/continent, not the largest, but by most of the people of the floating sky, the place they passionately desired to be at when it feels like being anywhere else in the world.

The city was vibrant, tall towers were everywhere, flying gryphons, wyverns, among other large flying animals were busy carrying carriages of people from towers to towers. The traffic seemed like they were batches of circles, separated by large gaps guarded by Mars' men, they set the parameters by moving / patrolling in an orderly manner, preventing anyone to push past the set boundaries. 

Ayame had no trouble maneuvering between all the swirls and rays of creatures, after seamlessly skipping from one current to another, she descended into middle part of a colorful tower...

------------------------------------

There were two large groups of military forces in the island of the floating sky, Mars' army and Hades' army. In the past they never cross border of each other, they sometimes even fought battles at the border. After the marriage of Hades and Persephone both forces settled their tension and gradually became more tolerant of the presence of one another. 

Due to frequent visit of Persephone to the upper world, Hades asked Mars if he could assign some troops in the house of Demeter... by the house of Demeter he meant domains of Demeter including silos, offices, and stores owned by Demeter. To put it shortly Mars agreed conditionally. These troops were called the shadows, officially they were named The Underworld's Ambassadorial Military Delegations... people just called them the shadows. 

The Shadows weren't allowed to use their usual armors and other big weapons as in the underworld, because Mars didn't want them to appear comparable side by side with his troops, instead they used slim katanas and shurikens, while covering their light armors with fabric from the top to the bottom of their body. 

Ayame was one of the shadows. 

---------------------------------------

The place Ayame were approaching was called Takoya host club, many employees of the host club were members of the Shadow, the rest were employees recruited by the house of Demeter. As she arrived at the club she greeted everyone and got welcomed warmly. She took out a bag and opened it, inside was a small jewelry box with strange symbol on top of it. The Manager of the place took the box and went to the back, she came back with a bag of powder and sprinkled some of them at the top of the box. After a while the symbol evaporated completely and suddenly the box became a big casket. 

Ayame opened the casket in excitement and there appeared a person, Chinmi. Chinmi hurriedly reaching out to sit, gasping for breath.

"What is this what is this? Who are you guys?" Seeing he was surrounded by strangers Chinmi reacted swiftly by jumping to the back

"Oh what a cute boy!" Ayame said

"Oh amazing!" The Manager shouted

"Wow!" The rest of the people were perplexed

Seeing that the strangers were amazed with the situation, Chinmi quickly took the opportunity to jump over their heads towards the door... 

"Aw!" Chinmi stepped on the shoulder of one of the guy there

While floating in the air Chinmi instantly intersected by a young guy with wings... Chinmi rolled around and kicked his feet, also doing this Chinmi propelled himself to the ground where there was a marble / jade table. 

"No! Becareful!" Shouted the manager, but too late Chinmi kicked the table away propelling himself back towards the door. The table slided towards other guys who were trying to capture him stopping them on their tracks. 

The winged guy was disoriented for a bit in the air but he didn't lose focus, as soon as Chinmi was about to take another step, he grabed him with his left arm at the collar of Chinmi's shirt. 

Chinmi turned around with a spinning kick, the guy released his grip in order to block, the kick appeared to be a strong one and indeed it made quite a sound when it hit the side of his arm. Since he was still partially floating while blocking, he got sent some distances away to the side by the kick. Now Chinmi back to ran towards the door

"Boy you hopeless!" Ayame shouted while flinging her chain forward towards the door. As soon as Chinmi about to grab the handle, the chain tied his hand. Ayame jerked the chain back with surprising strength, in his surprise, Chinmi got sent flying back towards the crowd with speed. 

He protected his head as he fell on the floor rolling, this time the Manager came to grab him, by now the roll untied him from the chain on his hand. But Chinmi kicked the Manager's arms away and in an acrobatic move spinning jump using his hands to land on her back. 

"Wait Ayame!" The manager ducked as she knew that Ayame was about to pounce... and Pouncing she came... 

Chinmi's stomach got hit by her head, he fell to the floor as Ayame proceed to choke him down. Unyielding he spun his feet to avoid her body pinning and kicked her on the head from an angle she didn't thought was possible. 

"What!" she loosened her grip a little bit

Chinmi continued to head butt her and set himself away. 

Now everybody was surprised seeing somebody escaped after being captured by Ayame, they didn't see that Chinmi used the wall to propelled himself back towards their direction... by the time they knew what was on top of them, Chinmi already stepped on somebody's head and flung himself towards the door again. 

This time the winged guy was waiting for him

"No you're not this time!" The winged guy stood between Chinmi and the door, eyes were watching Chinmi's movements closely. 

"Damn it!" Chinmi released his annoyance.

Chinmi spun kick the guy's head this time using his left feet, but he blocked it with his left arm, this time while having both feet firmly grounded

"He heh" he smiled in satisfaction as he successfully blocked Chinmi's powerful kick

Chinmi continued with series of punches and kicks, answered with several blocks and counter punches from the winged guy. Each bouts went faster and faster then after about 18 bouts, Chinmi managed to spun his arm at the wrong direction.

"Aaaaarg!" He shouted while fell into his knees. 

It seemed like Chinmi has won, but Ayame now is right behind him followed by the manager. 

Ayame grabed Chinmi's arm and twisted his hand, now Chinmi is the one in pain. The manager followed by grabbing his foot (the manager was a tall lady with big strong muscles). 

Now Chinmi was in a pinch once again. 

But Ayame noticed that Chinmi's mouth was moving in a weird way

"Manager! secret weapon!"

Heed to Ayame's warning the Manager quickly dodged as Chinmi was launching a needle towards her pressure point

"Damn it this kid!" Ayame's patience has been crossed at another level. 

Chinmi jumped and spun to free himself from Ayame's grip. He continued with a kick towards Ayame's stomach, it was a hit

"Ouch!" Ayame was pushed away a couple of steps... Chinmi rushed towards the door once again

"No you don't!" The Manager again tried to grab him, this time she was serious, she was coming at him at an incredible speed. 

Chinmi couldn't dodge this one but he saw it, he protected his body using his arms and legs as the Manager collided with him roughly. He managed to prevent being locked in, but now he is cornered between the walls. The door was blocked, the Manager was right in his way, he couldn't but to defeat her in a straight fight. 

He came with a drop kick, followed by a spinning kick, the manager just blocked him easily. 

He jumped back to avoid the Managers arms, as she tried to grab him from below. 

He took a deep breath and built up energy, to the onlookers it seemed like he couldn't do anything. 

But soon Chinmi took a crouching position and then kicked the wall, he came straight ahead, very very fast, palm opened, eyes wide staring at his target, the manager's chest. It was a hit, 

This is a move no one there ever seen before, the manager was flung some distance away, leaving a wide opening for Chinmi towards the door. 

Chairs were falling, the Marble / Jade table fell and got chipped. 

"NOOOOO!" the manager shouted

Now she's really mad... as the Chinmi was about to leave, the manager grabbed Ayame's chains and threw it at Chinmi's head. The collision knocked him forward, down to the floor, he hit his head and was then unconscious... but likely he was already unconscious when the tip of the chain hit the back of his head.  

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Arcadia had some armor and weapons shops, it was quite difficult to find shops that sells things commonly available in the rest of the world, and they were expensive if one ever found one. Therefore most of those armors and weapons were made out of dragon scales and teeth, since those were shed seasonally by many of the dragons there. 

A perk of having dragon scale equipments was they were compatible with magical enhancements. Magic usually were used to imbue weapons with elemental benefits or other magical benefits such as tracking, illumination, and teleportation. Teleportation magic is an expensive magic to use, casters linked their souls to a teleportation circle and then travelled far away to make another teleportation circle in association with it. One soul link is all a person has, and activating a teleporation link means he/she wouldn't be able to do other spells that requires soul linking. A weapon that's soul linked means that the user could control its movements using magic, often used with spears or arrows or other projectile weapons to pull them back, but it is also used strategically with swords and maces or other weapons, so if a warrior had this imbuement on, he wouldn't be able to perform other soul linked spells.

Consumable potions were also made out of dragons' blood or salivas, some were made with dragons' excretions. These were mostly gathered and manufactured by the dragon laboratory, located near the major's mansion. 

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Two sides of the Islands:

The Gangsters’ side of the Island and The New Country side of the Island have these differences in their politics:

The Gangsters allocate hierarchy based on how much income a person could bring into the “family”. The rules are those in the lower hierarchy must obey those in the higher ones no matter what. Conflict resolution, personal ownerships, work or jobs, all are determined by those in the higher hierarchy. There were main families, main families are the gangsters themselves, they are at the top hierarchy and would always be at the top hierarchy regardless of income.

The New Country has the concept of personal property, personal properties are ruled by the owner. There was the time for work and there was the time off work, during the time for work hierarchies were determined based on the person’s willingness and competence in solving the problem at hand. Upon successful achievements, workers would get paid, and these payments are their personal properties. Not even those at the higher hierarchy could tell them what to do with those properties of theirs.

Income is allocated based on the contribution towards problem-solving. The people who had the most income from the past usually are no longer the people who are the most willing and able to solve the problems currently faced. Even so they still had high chances to assume future leadership positions, because they tend to spend their income to increase their abilities and their properties of problem-solving assets. For those who had the most potent and sustainably relevant solutions, they would automatically be considered as participators when there were problems solved using some of their solutions, and so they kept on receiving income from the people regardless of their position in the hierarchy.  

The time off work is considered each person’s personal property, but when it’s time to work, everyone must be ready. Those who were not actively solving problems must gather in the pre-allocated public facilities, receiving educations and training, while always be ready to cover for problems that went through the currently busy workforce or other problems that came as an emergency. This time of work is allocated in shifts for those who currently are not in any projects, the country always had people ready all the time every day. 

------------------------------------------

The Yuwana gang has a henchman, he is the highest in the hierarchy outside the main Yuwana family. This guy secretly worked together with the Lich King to prevent other members from bringing in more income to the gang than he. Everytime there were potential "threats" to the henchman's position, there were always troublesome events happening against the Yuwana gang. 

-------------------------------------------

Mars and Mercurius in the bath house

After a party, Mars and Mercurius went in a bath house with some fruits and wine. There's no one but them, as Mars intended to talk about some military strategies regarding multiple threats that they are facing. Mercurius' role is important in keeping those points of stalemates stable and to direct their paths towards the direction that Mars would wanted them to go. 

At the end of a conversation, and Mars has drunked a little bit too much, Mars started to pour a little bit of his heart out, 

Mars: Mercurius you are a man of philosophy, right

Mercurius: I'm not that good at it

Mars: Nonsense, you... (staring Mercurius right between his eyes), are the best philosophers I've ever met. 

Marcurius: (Smiled reluctantly), I don't think... 

Mars: Cut it out, you're the best, you are ahahahaha.... (Mars laughed a bit then sip his cup of wine)

Then Mars looked up at the Carvings on the ceiling, it was Zeus at the very middle, surrounded with his families who were also his closest officials, and then at the outer parts were the other "gods", and then at the further outer parts were heroes of the past, and then the valiant armies of the sky, and at the outermost ring, various kinds of lives from humans to animals to plants. 

Mars: Do you know the reason why we are here?

Mercurius: Why we are here as, why we held the party?

Mars: Noo no... No. Why... we are here, alive, exist. Why we are here in this world that is so disatisfying, inadequate, so unfulfilling. 

Mercurius: (Paying attention to him in silence)

Mars: Why after victories over victories, over victories and victories, we would still crave for more?

Mercurius: Hmmm... 

Mars: Ahahaha I should've said I rather than we didn't I? HAHAHA

Mercurius: (Smiled while still paying attention)

Mars: It's endless... fighting, winning, and yet there's still someone who's higher, people who are stronger, even more than the strength of the finest warrior... and those people kept on getting stronger. 

Mercurius: Ah, you mean Zeus?

Mars: No! Mercurius ahahaha, well maybe he is so, but I was talking about us Mercurius... us. Look at all of those heroes on the outer rings, they are some of the finest warriors ever existed. War is what they breathe, defeat is what they exhaled while everybody else could only inhale it. 

Mercurius: (Quite amazed with this side of Mars that he never have seen before). 

Mars: Yet us the Gods are greater than them, as their victories are ours and all of those that have made their name through obliterating their enemies carried with them us as their banner. As they increased themselves, we... were elevated even higher. 

(Mars turned his gaze at Mercurius)

How do you find this fact to be Mercurius?

Mercurius: Indeed it was that of which one could find deep dissatisfaction upon. However without that, everything else would not be established. Such are our world is built upon

Mars: Well said! AHAHAHA, what have I told you, you are indeed the best philosophers I know!

Mercurius: (laughed with a sense of dissatisfaction)

Mars: See I already know that that is the case, for what point is there a soldier worrying about this, it is the weakness of the soul, and if I saw such fragility through their eyes I'd know exactly how strong they are and how I'm going to deal with them... but

To what purpose is all of those arrangement Mercurius, have you found the reason behind it?

Mercurius: The purpose of the way things are being a hierarchy of glory?

Mars: Yes, do you know? Because I know

Mercurius: You know?

Mars: I know, I already know the answer my brother

Mercurius: Oh... let me see, are you going to say that, that is how we would become stronger and stronger?

Mars: Ahahaha, no no no... Mercurius this is where you missed it out my brother

Mercurius: Hmmm, interesting, what is it that's in your mind brother?

Mars: (He smiled satisfyingly and said...) Those at the top were tasked to face evil itself, and kill it. 

(He leaned his head back and looked up again)... That's why we are supposed to be strong brother, to kill, to destroy, to make it no more.

Mercurius was taken a back with this answer and had to resort to a quick contemplation... 

Mars: We are monsters my brother, we are the killers. All of this power, is the terror of it who wants to ruin everything. Therefore let it be the case

(Mercurius leaned his head back and looked up at the carvings as well...) 

Mercurius: I see Mars

Mars: ....

Mercurius: I see... so let I will be the case as well

Mars: ... (heh heh heh) My Brother

---------------------------

Unicorn Raider's sons and daughters

In order to become a member of the Unicorn Raider organization a person needs to have this mutation in their brain that disabled them from experiencing normal emotions and made them really hard to appreciate the Truth. They took pride in esteeming themselves as the higher evolution since they hesitated not in taking advantage of the "cattles" while they just stupidly let their precious be consumed. Like a herd of bisons who are perfectly capable of hurting the all the lions but decided not to organize themselves to do so. The unicorn raiders will eat and the cattles would not eat. 

As it turned out all human beings are monsters in their own way, the members of unicorn raiders were closely monitored by gangsters, as soon as they did something wrong, and they couldn't help not to, they'd be pounced and they wouldn't be protected. So realizing all this the gangsters took liberty in finding every unicorn raiders members and stick close to them, they were easily extorted. 

The sons and daughters of the unicorn raiders decided to put a tattoo on their face or on their hand to show people that they had the mutation and requested to be acknowledged as "different". In doing so they managed to live peacefully as the people now knew how to set boundaries between them. Gangsters couldn't but to lure them outside of their order in order to put them in compromising situations.

Such is the creation of the Exile, a village outside of Caerleon that would spread around the world and became a new country in the future

---------------------------

There was a turmoil and a civil war, people killing people. Turned out the compulsive liars find it hard to organize themselves into a society. But a leader stood out and gave structure to their world, the name was Jahe. 

Jahe laid out these foundational mindset for the citizen of the new country:

Lie should lie to itself, 

For the sake of diversification, since lie is also a tool that could be used for something

For the sake of excellence, being able to lie to the lie itself must be an achievement that is not to be underestimated

For the sake of accuracy, lie should be familiar with the Truth in order to sustain its presence

For the sake of self love, since lie is its own product 

For the sake of expansion, lie is a territory to explore as well

...

Therefore false lie to each other

Because we all are liars

------------------------------

The country's economy grew in a fluctuative way, sometimes they were progressing rapidly other times they were disintegrating themselves. Dyonisius was one of the Gods who were playing the share market game and he grew fond of the state of these people. He came to them and was accepted by their greatest men. There they established a production complex that produced most of the successful entertainment programs all around the world.

------------------------------

Why would you, how could you?

You're my friend, my hands

Have I wronged you? Haven't I've given the fairest of what I could give? 

#Hee heee hee, you with your gullibility! So gullible why are you so gullible! (Tossed his head away)

What is your problem!!!

#I don't, I donnnnttt. But my friend, hahhaha you're lying. I'm never "your friend". 

Look who's lying (delivered punch)

#Heeee heeeeheee. You little kid! You are too gullible, I can't stand it. (Grabs shirt). If I am really your friend, then why you must always put me in order? Why never you give me more than what's set before? You always said "my friend my friend"... I'm not as stupid as you, I can't stand it, yeah, oh yeah, that's why I did it, that's why... its so stupid and its relentless, I can't stand it anymore.

So you want me to give you less, and then let you take more than that? Is that what you want me to do?

#... #... #... Aaaaaaaaa haghagahga you wouldn't even bother to think like this for me "my friend" yes, yes, at least that would be less of insult than being your silly little pawn

(sat in depressed relieved state) you're such a kid. Look what you've done, how much losses we have to deal with how much compensation...

#Pathetic... goodbye "friend"

----------------------------------

Sometime ago The Lich King arrived in the island of dreams using raft. Seeing the Island to be a potential place for him to start a kingdom, he did something. 

One day a meteor rain fell upon the whole islands from north to south, east to west. Lots of losses among the people and they were in tatters for a full year. After a year they started to rebuild themselves, the Lich King among others were helping them rebuild their houses and provided medicines/healing items and skills. What most of them didn't see, the Lich King also spread poison in the medicine, leaving people sick with specific type of illness and addicted with specific type of substance. Only the Lich King has the cure for those problems. 

One guy managed to find an alternative method of curing the illness, but the Lich King noticed that during those times people were very traumatic, so they wouldn't bother giving other people the benefit of the doubt. He spread rumors about that person being the one responsible for the poison and everybody believed. Before he could prove himself, he was executed by the mass. 

The Lich King still had the addictive substance to sell even though he had to reveal his poison previously. The Yuwana family's right hand man noticed everything that he did and he thought that it was smart. He started to spread rumors on another trusted guy of the Yuwana family, his competition, that he stole a lot of wealth during the disaster and kept it for himself. Then he smuggled piles and piles of treasure into that person's house while he was away on a job. It worked well and that guy was attacked by the whole city, he then managed to escape to another territory. 

The Lich King also noticed what this right hand did and he kept it to himself. The two arranged a meeting with each other trying to gesture their truce. Then they implemented a policy amongst their ranks / gang members, "Anyone who talked bad about our family, kill them immidiately". Such policy started to spread everywhere and no one dares to speak boldly about other people ever after that. 

---------------------------------

The Mermaid King and Mercurius noticed such habit and learned a slice of their history. Dead bodies on the street, brothers killing brothers, and the obligation of the accused to prove themselves instead of the accuser. Both of them were deeply concerned and tried to implement a measure. 

Mercurius started to contact Dyonisius and asked him to open up a branch of entertainment complex in the area. Backed by the wealth of the Mermaid King and the territory of the Yuwana family, they set to create publicly enjoyable shows catering to the principals of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

----------------------------------

Due to the Island being infested with drug selling gangs, there were a lot of homeless addicts roaming around cities all over the Island. The city where Yuwana gang and the Lich King's gang was, also full of homeless addicts living on the streats begging for money. 

Some home businesses in the area figured out that not all of those homeless people are severely addicted, some still has reasonable control over themselves. So they gave discount coupons to these beggars so that everyone who gave them money would be given back a coupon. If the coupon ended up being used, some of those proceeds were given to the beggars. 

This scheme were gaining track some months after it was widely done. The beggars started to be creative on their begging like doing talent acts, magic, dancing, and music. However since there were plenty of them, there were a lot of fights. Soon appear some strong people challenging everyone in the middle of their street fighting, and they beat everybody up until they wouldn't fight anymore. 

Among their ranks appear one who seems old but highly feared and respected among the strongmen. His name was Ang Cit Kong. 

No one could beat Ang Cit Kong in a fight. Legend said that 10 people came at him at once with all sorts of weapons including secret weapons but couldn't defeat him, couldn't even breaking a sweat out of him. Some years after, Ang Cit Kong's gang became big and they "protect" all the beggars and street performers in the area. 

------------------------------------

Ang Cit Kong hated the Lich King deeply, he just hated the person from deep inside his gut. He don't want him or his men to do anything anywhere near his business, so he pick a fight whenever he saw them around. Because of this Lich King is waiting for the opportunity to assasinate the king of beggars. 

------------------------------------

Ang Cit Kong once visited the new country, and he came to the mall and was amazed with it. During the time of his visit he learned that people lost their jobs in this country all the time, but they had no worries since there's always new innovation looking for their services. 

Ang Cit Kong offered a lot of his men to work there to the Major of the City where he was at. He explained that businesses around the mall could flourish by creating a mini rail track, and build cart for customers and tourists to ride on. His strongest man "Hes" would be pulling the cart around the block and other blocks where people sell different things. That would bring customers closer to the sellers of the neighborhood he said. 

The Mall owner considered his idea to be useful and he sponsored the idea. Amazed at the strength of "Hes" the owner even gave him a persona, a super hero costume. Visitors who brought kids to the mall would bring their kids to "Hes" and he would take the kids around the neighborhood. The kids like the super hero and always wanted to go back and meet him. The businesses around the neighborhood also welcomed "Hes" and his train when he was around, the kids love snacks and magic beverages along the way so they displayed them along the track and were sold out like mad.  

The Major however didn't like the idea of having these gang members around. He only allowed "Hes" to do business and only him. So Ang Cit Kong left "Hes" there as he went back to his hometown together with his men. 

---------------------------------

In the wake of the new country's trade and exchange commission department a sarahsechan was held (gala diner), people from all over the country were invited, from farmers and fishermen, sailors and merchants they all appeared to celebrate the introduction of the new trading system. 

The President wanted the country to participate in international trade more prominently therefore he invited respresentatives or diplomats from all over the known world into the event. Known as the delegation of the Mermaid King and the Dragon Tribe, the First one, the Second, and the one called the Dark Blue was there. Dark blue's dragon form was a wyvern and he was supposed to be the first general in a case of war against the red dragon's enemies. However it's been a year since the missing of the Great Dragon still the news about her whereabouts were vague. 

The host entered the chamber where everyone was chatting standing up. The whole room was warm in essence with red carpet and golden curtains, chandeliers and soft refreshing breeze from the magical ice. She started to announce the presence of the invitees emphasizing on the introductions of the international delegations. Beautiful soft music started playing, slow but gradually became more and more rich without failing to augment the serenity of the free interactions between the people inside. 

To most perplexion a couple of professional dancer starts dancing in the middle, followed by the ministers and the respectable nobles of the country. Some international delegations were finding each other to dance and some others watched while expressing their appreciations. Soon the music introduced some more merry and increase of pace, everyone was smiling and some even clapped their hands to the well known tune. The President started walking towards the front and invited a little girl to dance, she accepted with a big smile on her face. The song went on for minutes, some were jumping, some were laughing, and when the conductor saw that the little girl was dancing awkwardly, he signalled for a funny tune. 

At the end of the dance, the instruments were exhaling a harmony of a dream, to everyone's perplexion they found themselves followed with a footstep of appreciation. Clapping their hands in congruity the momentum of togetherness remained until the following of the event. 

-------------------

Now everyone found themselves being invited to the front room. In the room there were seats facing a podium, the light shone bright and it seems that the technology used for the lamps were novel and strange. 

The trade comissioner started off by welcoming everyone and then the President was invited to give a speech. As usual he came in a calm and welcoming manner, stood to look at everyone with a silent whisper, and started his speech with a smile...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, honorable invitee and the people of the new country, good evening,
Thank you for your presence, for your time, and for your kindness to everybody tonight, my heart deeply recognized and appreciated your peaceful support, your flattering respect, and our short but meaningful kinship"

The crowd answered with a round of applause. 

"Today is a merry day, a happy moment, as well as a dearly relieving one as we had been working hard and relentlessly to piece together this memento of the beginning of our new relationships". 

"The journey had been long, I know, and for those who know, we know, of a lot of energy and concentration to piece together our order of recognition, and the contracts of our discipline and responsibilities. However, we also recognize ladies and gentlemen that we had not yet reached the end, yes moreover hopefully we would always keep on improving and found better and better versions of the solutions to better our circuit, our business relations, and our economies, within and over this world of the emergence of the new era of international cooperation"

"Today I present you guys the opening of the new country's trade and exchange market and ministry" 

3 assistants entered, 2 brought a table and one was holding a big candle. She put the candle on top of the table and lit it up. The President appeared to signal a person to join in, and the person appeared. The President smiled and shook his hand and started to looked back at the audience while leaning his face a little. 

"Here ladies and gentlemen is the new exchange commissioner, he just been set free from a conflict somewhere else... for those who knew would know"

Some people were clapping.

The President took a deep breath and seemed to be changing his mind a little, he walked forward and said

"Ladies and gentlemen oh the free people of my country, I recognize that we are all in one way or the other, are connected to the sea. I do remember the code of the swirling bravery"

The Crowd chanted "The Courage to Answer, The Abundance of the Ocean, and the Wisdom to not be disconnected from it"

"Him, look at this person, do you know him?"

Some people shed some tears... 

"Today he's really free and so, here is the man who have swam through the swirling bravery and survived till the end"

The crowd cheered surprisingly thundering, and the cheer was so long but to the international members of the party, it was greatly filled with senses of relief and peace from everybody.

The President extended his hand forward and together the two of them high fived the candle's ember and blew the smoke upwards marking the official beginning of the implementation of the new protocol of trade. 

The ceremony was continued with conversations questions and answers by the members of the audience. It was a rather long night, but most went back with some fruitful thoughts. 

---------------------------------

In the island of dreams there was a reporter named Steas, he often observed the society in obscurity and noticed that this drug "tersinggu" given by the lich king gang caused severe withdrawal symptoms no one attributed to the drug.

He wrote that in his blog and a lot of people got offended by him. Some people though tried to gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried not taking the drugs. Indeed they experienced hard withdrawal symptoms. This finding was recommended to the district elders and some of them agreed but some others dismissed it.

The Lich King gang got so mad at this rumor they called it slander and defamation. Under this account they hunted Steas but he was nowhere to be seen. The Lich King heard of the gem that could reveal the place of missing people, so he ordered his assasin to steal it.

With the gem Steas was found and he was brought to the city trial. 

The public knew by then that he was right but the Lich King would reward more tersinggu for those who went against him. A lot of people were still under the influence and slandered him at the trial.

Steas was sentenced to jail but soon after the verdict people jumped and surrounded him. They hit him until he was no more.

Sometime in the future there were a lot of people managed to set themselves free from the drug. They acknowledged the contribution of Steas and created a statue for him, his name became fragrant throughout the country, everybody excalted and cried whenever hearing his name. Some even called him an angel, but at the grave he wrote... I'm no angel. So the eldery of the future calmed people down from calling him an angel and his name became even more fragrant forever and ever. He was also handsome, future women considered his feature to be that of an ideal man.

Many man couldn't live up to this standard and ended up single for the rest of their lives

Amen

----------------------------

After all of the troops gone the battle between Zeus and Hades continued towards the dry land. When they were near the shore they stopped and "magically" lost their wings. They fell into the beach and swam all the way to the sands. 

Zeus told Hades to change his appearance and they both transformed like a very poor old men. 

Hades: Who exactly is this guy you're trying to show me brother. 

Zeus: You'll see Hades

Hades (gritting his teeth): If I didn't know you knew the consequences of dissapointing me...

Zeus (shaking his head): If I didn't know your habit of crossing the line little one...

Both of them walked to a dead city an empty town, Zeus seems to be heading towards a "Saloon" an abandoned bar. At the other side of the building sat an old man who looked even more dirty and miserable. He had a small leather flask that he kept on pouring inside his mouth, strangely the liquor inside never seemed to had an end. 

The old guy looked at them and recognized Zeus, he laughed and said:

Old guy: Heh heh heh, it's you young man oh long time no see!

Zeus: Hi how are you

Old guy: Heh heh heh you indeed doesn't change boy 

Hades (appeared to be upset): (*Whispering) Who is this crazy person and why are you letting yourself be insulted like this!?

Old guy: Hmmm? Oh my, sorry for my runny mouth, and you must be his brother I see?

Hades (*perplexed): Excuse me old one I don't think we've met before

Old guy: Indeed we haven't 

Zeus: Old man this is my brother Hades, he is the king of the underworld another one in the floating land. (sitting down). Have a sit Hades

Hades was still unhappy how his brother's behavior was so unusual and that he's clueless about this person who seemed to had unprecedented respect from his brother Zeus. But knowing this very fact he restrained to object even further, he preceeded to sit on the dust together with his brother. 

Old guy: Do you have any drinks on you? I could offer you mine but I doubt this would be somewhat befitting (while saying this the old man glanced at Hades). 

Zeus: Oh yes (Zeus reaching out to his pocket and took a golden bottle, inside a fresh spring of water was preserved together with its chilling temperature). Here you go brother have some... (he threw the bottle at Hades). 

Hades: Thank you brother, the spring of Castalia... (silent for a bit) I didn't know we are celebrating a family gathering here. (Once again Hades expressed a disagreeing look, but he ended up drinking from it anyway).

Zeus: Here old man have some too...

The old man looked at the bottle with his eyes flowering, suddenly a big smile came upon his face. He took the bottle with excitement, looked at Zeus and said

Old guy: Oh boy you still have this on you. Thank you, thank you very much

He drank the water with excitement, but shortly restrained himself and returned the bottle with an effort. 

Old guy: Oh, sorry boy I almost finished it

Zeus: It's ok old man drink all of it, I brought it here for you actually

Old guy: But you haven't even took a sip, here drink what's left of it

Zeus: Allright then... (then Zeus drank the little water left inside the bottle until it's completely empty).

Hades: I still haven't introduced myself, I'm Hades the king of the underworld and mind if I know yours?

Old guy: I'm no one boy, just a nobody

Hearing this Hades stood up reaching out for something from his back. Zeus immidiately stood up and shouted "Brother!", but before Zeus shouted Hades had stopped himself from doing anything. He went back and sit and acted as if nothing had happened. 

The old man again talked with Zeus about various things that Hades found to be trivial, and then he started to pass his drink to Zeus and said:

Old guy: Here have a drink, it's been a while and you must be thirsty

Zeus: Old man you're always drinking I see your sense of thirst is crooked, I just drank a little time ago it's really not necessary

Old guy: (Laughing hard) Hahaha is that so, oh oh oh, Hahahahaha. It seems that I've achieved a new experience here, being devoid of thirst satiation ahaahhaha. 

Zeus: Old man I'm sure that's something to celebrate

Old guy: Of course it is, it has been a long time, a long time I became something other than my past self

At this point Hades started to look interested. 

Zeus: Old man when the floating sky... you know the floating land... floated. Did you (seems like Zeus is somewhat hesitating)

Old guy: I was there... yeah, I knew

Zeus: If you don't mind I'd like to know more... 

Old guy: You're a smart one King of the sky, but I understand that you couldn't possibly know that I'm not going to tell you anything, not about that, nor about whatever it is that's to know of the past. 

Zeus: (Perplexed in silence)

Old guy: The Journey of life is through the valley of destiny, robbing one of his valley... well I'd say I've learned it the hard way... Not going to be something that I would do, ever,
Never boy... (then tears started to appear in both of his eyes). 

Zeus: It's ok old man

Old guy: Oh sorry have I dissapointed you (now he's clearly running tears). 

Zeus: No, no, I'm glad to be here. I'm too an immortal being old man, even though just recent immortal but maybe, somewhat through my perspective as a "king", I know what you're talking about... just a little. 

Hades was about to asked a question to Zeus but the old man started to slap his own face with despair. Immidiately an earthquake happened, and some moments while the earth was still trembling, a huge volcano erupted and the cloud was clearly visible in the middle of the ocean. 

Zeus looked a bit disoriented but he's like knew what was happening, while the old man just kept on appearing sad like nothing urgent. Now Hades knew that, that slap, that slap in particular, was reverberating into that. He still couldn't believe his own deduction but in the middle of the quake he couldn't but to sit there stunned, both of his hands on the ground, surprised and in awe. 

-------------------------

Have you ever seen a world so perfect, so put together

The migration of the birds meant the birth of a child

The plight of the clouds meant the visitation of the gods

The passing of a black cat certainly meant the coming of a bad luck!

Have you ever seen Asgard the dwellings of the Divine

Odin in his magnificence, 

Thor in his might

Tyr in his overwhelmingness

Surely, miss you would,

Leave you won't

And dream you'd do

While the movements of the world was sure

Needs of life was deliberate

Where the minds of the world flowed as one

Incomprehensibly somehow

Unanswerable, Incessantly Pondering Inviting

Should such brought to life a trickster

The one alone?

The one unsatisfied?

The one unbeknownst?

For the one, Love was a curse

Freedom was a weapon

and Family was a misfortune

For the one, emptiness is himself while not he recognized not

From the very heart he longed for Change, his priorities were in his curiosity

But foolishness was in him

Such it was the only thing he wished to be fred from, every moment of his life. 

He came to accepted it, He came to embraced it, He came to had forgotten it. 

And so the end was his beginning

The end was his beginning, (cried really hard)

Oh why oh why, 

The end was his beginning... 

In nothingness he was,

Where there wasn't even emptiness, he was

Nowhere, Nowhen, No, Noone

His empty heart was empty for eternity

His unexistence existing always

Until as one with everything and nothing, he remembered

He remembered,

He remembered!!!

Change belong with its opposite

His crime was the opposite

But now he's free! it was all a lie

The opposite 

The opposite

Thank you, 

Thaaaaaaaank youuuu!!!!!

Thank you

---------------------------

Next morning as they were about to leave, they threw some water at the fire and Hades took a black bottle out from his inner pocket. 

Hades: Old man I know this should be incomparable with that. But at least it is different

Old guy: Haah thank you boy, 

(he opened up the lid and drank a sip from it). 

Zeus: That is a good one old man

(The old man looked at it and smiled. Then he laughed, he laughed, and he ran in circle. Then he stopped and said...)

Old guy: Sorry my boys its going to be me who will leave first

Zeus: Its ok old man

Hades: Alright old man, hope you'd still be willing to meet us again someday

(The old guy laughed really loud and said)

Old guy: Hades you're a king indeed, you have the spirit of cautionary wisdom, thanks for showing me your nice side.

(The old guy then pat Hades' shoulder twice and ran into the ocean, he seemed to be running on water instead of into the water, then he just dissapeared). 

Zeus: What have you done brother...

Hades: Huh, what?

Zeus: He was just sitting there, drunk, and still

Hades:... .... oh no

Zeus: Brother, why did you gave him...

Hades: I don't know brother! you said it's a good one, you're the one who added exhiliration into it

Zeus: Oh... I forgot how you like to blame people

Hades: YOU START... YOU BLAMED ME FIRST!

Zeus: (exhaling...)

Hades kicked the sand and watched Zeus unacceptingly, 

Hades: Well now what?

Zeus: I don't know, do you?

Hades: To be honest I don't

Zeus chuckled a little bit, and then resummoned his wings 

Zeus: I'm going back... are you?

Hades: No I'd be going back (changed back to his sky person form), you wait here like you always do, I'd like to be alone for now. 

Zeus: (exhales as he watched Hades flew away)... Oh well. Hmmm, let's see I think Maree is closeby, or Sandwra... hmmmmm ah, Jessga. Hahaha, (and he flew to the opposite direction). 

----------------------------------

In several places around the world it's pretty common to have a festival where chefs from all over the community would gather in a place of the sun. The place of the sun could mean open fields, parks, or even deserts where they would cook for the masses. The logic behind this is that the sun is a large source of energy and using the power from the sun directly or in real time would safe a lot of other forms of energy that could be used for various other opportune moments.

Prometheus and his men is no stranger to the festival, each opportunity they would attend and impress everybody with their outstanding skills. Some of these skills were derived from their martial arts discipline, when comes to cooking on a giant wok lit up by the immense focused heat of the sun, they could do things that no ordinary cooks could, such display of skill became the highlight of the festival. 

Insects were staple food in this kind of festival, some insect breeders prepared a section of their farm only for this purpose, sometimes there were seasons where a large army of insects attacked fields of crops of the farmers. People would gather together and capture most of the insects and the festival would be held soon after to celebrate

----------------------------------

In the darkness of the temple, in the obscurity of the trancing crowd. One great individual was kneeling in distress... In his hand a bowl of concoction that he'd prefer never had to see even more take, but here he was lamenting crying while taking his first sip. 

Laying down in the obscurity of the beat of the drums, the endless chanting and singing of the passionate youth, and also the mantle of overlook he started to let himself go. 

Shouting and shouting, shaking

After that, fatigue, and helplessness

He drifted through the shadows and then through the vastness of the thought, beyond the individual of the realm, into... the council....

Welcome exalted one, 

Welcome the one whose destiny flawless, another one said

My boy my pride... 

"Please oh Please, I don't know, I don't know what exactly but I've paid and I've received. I've offered my sacrifice and yet no, I don't have enough, as much of a greatness it is to not be overwhelmed by your acceptance. "

"I'll heed even though I already know" Said one with the square face, with darker roots or entanglements as his body, and fibers as his limbs

"Please release her from the curse she had to BEAR!" From now he shouted! and visibly angry. 

The one with the red synapses as hair replied: "For a curse to you is not but a privilege and it is so"

Down in the darkness his tears was streaming down like a fountain wetting the ground where he was. 

"Your distress has shaken our time and your sorrow made shoutings a part of the equation"

"My time is short" said he helplessly "Release her for good..."

"Her presence is one that was that of a bloom, result of presence, presence of result, fall of the former and the future of a part of us, and you too"

"My chosing of her was inevitable" said the one with the glowing eyes

"No, no, no, can't the world be conscious? couldn't we determine our path, direct our ways. Can't I choose and not be punished?"

They looked at each other, and with synergy they held his hand (in a foreign way) (meaning unknown)

He was drifting away, then into the darkness, then into the world. Everything was hazy to him. For a moment he felt euphoric, but with the will of his own, he wallowed in pain in a lot of pain.

-------------------------------

In the House of Hestia, there minister 4 very close God and Godesses, who came and go as they please. Except for one Aphrodite, who since juvenile had been in the guardianship of Hestia and had never left her temple (a hidden temple behind Hestia's temple). 

These other 3 are Athena, Artemis, and Dyonisius. They've gone way back and their bond was the early mark of the genius of Athena. 

Hearing news of a relative who suffered a terrible disease, little Athena was set to visit her aunt cousin Aphrodite. She couldn't come closer than she wanted to and could only see her Aunt Hestia going in and out of a small temple carrying letters back and forth. 

Everytime she came out of the temple, Hera used her power to replace the air in the viscinity and blew it far towards the sky. This is the only ritual that enabled communication between Aphrodite and the outside world. 

Athena lived with this image until her teenage years when she visited Hestia personally one time, talked a lot with her and admired her convictions. She decided to became her disciple and learned her crafts until one day somehow due to a secret encounter, she managed to know why Hestia is immune to Aphrodite's presence.

Some years after that Artemis came look for Athena while she was visiting Apollo's mansion and together they decided to perform a never before tried surgery to be like Hestia. 

Lastly the young Dionysus who's a genius but likes play and party, cherished the company of his sisters so much, he figured out an enhanced method to perform the surgery and performed it upon himself. Later he encouraged his own house to perform a derivative surgery that doesn't make them immune to the presence of Aphrodite but did other things.

-------------------------------

(note from me the writer: in the real world now there's an issue of kids transgenderism. I don't encourage this. In the story I'm referring to the type of surgery that I wanted to do personally which is the libido switching off surgery if I could. I wish I could get certified as someone who has no libido so that I could be intimate with anyone in non sexual manner and they would know that I'm ok. Also, I say the surgery is not for kids if there's such thing)

-------------------------------

The Game of the Gods,

When Mercurius was learning about Demeter's silo currency translation system, he created a card game which now became a popular card game among the Gods:

A deck of cards contained 52 cards, each divided into four types... Clover, Spades, Hearts, and Diamonds. The game is played with 4 players one being the "Athena". The 3 players would play either Hearts, Clovers, or Diamonds. The spades would represent the goods or the produce of the Gods. 

The Game started by each player having one card of their own and one produce, the number associated with it were random, dealt by the "Athena". When a player took a turn he could choose whether he would "revaluate", "trade", or "innovate". Given they only got one card they should "innovate". 

Note: The cards represents their money, and the ratio between how many cards they had with how many goods they had represented their internal exchange rate. The goal of the game is to collect spades' 11th, 12th, 13th, and the First Card. So players would trade resources among each other using only the internal currencies. In order to buy a spade card from another player you have to had their currencies, therefore you had to buy their currencies first during the "trading/exchange" session. Your ratio compared to their ratio is the standard rate and could not be rejected, more favorable offers are possible. 

When the player innovate, he/she would face athena with his/her spades spread on hand and Athena with her own spades on hand. Athena chose a card, and then the player chose Athena's card, there the innovation session was completed. 

Each turn a player could choose to do 2 out of 3 options. During the revaluation session (possible after having many cards dealt already) the player could close/opened some of their currency cards changing the internal exchange rate (applied next turn). 

Oh, and "Athena" would deal to every player one of their currency card and one of the spade card at random (face down). After Athena ran out of cards, she would just stay and make sure players were exchanging at proper rates and then kept one spade card to innovate with. Each players could not go lower than one currency card and one goods/services card. 

--------------------

Molok gained power through humanity's fear on other humans. At his worst he absorbed children, sacrificed as a statement of what humans could do to other human beings. But even when he wasn't being all that bad, not that he couldn't became worse, he'd be about preventing human beings from being mutual to one another, suspicions are like snacks to him, and for anyone who dare to orient themselves and other people towards justice, he'd instill violent/damaging retaliation from the "self" or the said "other people" where he had domain upon. 

He started his colony on people's mind through one's suspicion on other people, together with other council entities such as one who fed on accurate cautions and accurate wisdoms. He grew by rewarding powerful behaviors but of obscurity, which not necessarily always bad, but often unreviewed. His real opening was when one ruined their opportunities to have mutual relationships by letting the momentum of powerful obscurity swindled the other party's responsible negotiations and good intentions with irresponsible uncorrectable intimidations/coercions. Funny thing is the host usually wouldn't think that it was unfair. All the more however if the host believed that it was unfair but kept on doing it anyway, these hosts are already attached to Molok and would experience relapses if being torn apart from it. 

----------------------

Upon finding the desolation of his previous village, the Mermaid king set up his own kingdom there. Even though the transportation was rough and the people were not all there, they've already started to settle. And unlike the desert where they had to stay around the viscinity of the barrier, now they could swim to wherever and venture on much larger areas. 

The King wished that the main mermaid and mermans would pass down their knowledge and technology to his people, but they are nowhere to be found. Regardless already the people had created magical mines, coral farms, restaurants, communication networks and innovative magical machines and theme parks deep down in the sea floor. Schools were set up for the younger generations to learn magic, but all of them are new to the sea where they belonged and together they explored, named and documented themselves everything of interests to them.

They used shells as currencies, and for the shells to be official currencies they must pass consensus from the mermans congregations. The Schools observed the condition of commerce and identified whether the people had established more circuits of solutions significant to tip the balance of the value of the overall shells. At first when such tip of balance were identified, the people were suggested to invoke their own community shells. Then upon majority corroborations between schools, if the results were positive, the mermans and mermaids businessmen and workers would meet together to create a consensus on incorporating the new shells as the official shells. 

The decisions would be made such as, so that the current owners of shells wouldn't have the potential to disrupt the new circuits just because of the deflation of the whole shells. On top of that, the new circuits which are deemed sustainable would be favored more than those that were temporary in nature. Another concerns would be if the flow of shells would trigger the collapse of the businesses, centering only on one business center, thereby reducing the flow of "blood" towards the new circuits and killing them. They want to have a good balance where the flow circulates to the new organs well instead of fattening the existing ones, increasing the numbers of their future possible outcomes immensely (its debilitating). 

-------------------------------------

Huh, Chinmi, you wanted to work at the Silos?

I feel bad doing nothing all this time, at least I got to do something

Well, I don't see how that's impossible

Thank you Ma Leader

Have you ever done such job before?

What's the job like?

Oh you don't know? and here you are wanting for the job, hahaha

Stop teasing him Ayame, explain it!

Alright Ma Leader, here Chinmi do you see those cylinders?

Those yellow buildings that rises above the clouds?

Yellow? are you colorblind?

Those are teal, 

No! Ma you're colliterate, those are beige

No no little Ayame those are teal, light teal

What is teal? I thought it's yellow

Shut up both of you are wrong

Colliterate? Color Illiterate? hahaha indeed a school dropout

Shut up Ma don't attack the person attack the argument

Hey hey hey who is the one starting this huh?

Okhay you two calm down

Heh Ma, so you want to play with me huh? I could see that you've gotten yourself pretty bored training your unshrinkable belly

Hmm Ayame here you go again talking rude, I can't say that I'm not bored though I really wanted to bust open that spicy mouth of yours.

Shut up! Aren't you guys going to explain to me how the Silos work?!

(It's too late they already started fighting)

(At a point, they started to use Chinmi as shields from each other attacks, so now even Chinmi joined the fight, it's 1 vs 1 vs 1)

-------------------------------------

It was an open field and the three of them were laying on the pastures at the duck farm, exhausted

"So Ayame sensei, can you please teach me now?"

Ayame sat down, which followed by Chinmi and then she smiled

"You're still wanting to talk about it? Wow you're determined. Good here listen:

Ma probably going to put you in there as an intern to the consignment analyst"

"Consina analyst?"

"Consignment! Are you a school dropout too?"

"I kinda am" (he was studying for his scholar's degree exam when suddenly he woke up already in a strange looking casket).  

"Oh tee hee, that makes us siblings (she hit him on his shoulder)"

"Aww... too strong"

"So, Ma and I are going to go there and take some supplies, the Silo has chambers of Ice where those would be kept without a chance of going bad. There's a cost to that and that's one of the way they gained income"

"Oh wow..."

"Right, but that's not even come close to the other way. Which is the consignment stores. The Demeter stores are spread all over the flying skies and that's where smaller vendors would buy their supplies of most things, everything could be available there, basically Demeter controls the whole economy"

"Wow"

"That's right my children and I are directly under the supervision of her house. Basically me and Ayame came from the underworld, like you we are not citizens here. Ayame could not work here because of that, I could, but that's complicated I'll explain you another time, or maybe you'll figure it out later."

"I see, but I could work?"

"Yes, Chinmi because you're an artifact"

"What?!"

"Yes yes yes, that's what we're going to say to them. Lord Hades "entrusted" me to investigate his issues of the "Love Below" and this is, I mean you, is one of the artifact that came out from the land."

"Oh..."

"Yes Ayame is right, I hope you could help us here, we too want to contribute more to Lady Demeter's "house" for her hosting of us all"

"Hmmm... alright, then what should I do there?"

"Your job is to analyze the scarcity of the region, and then allocate supplies to Demeter's branches there. You have to get good at it, master it, the better you are at knowing the right supplies to send, the less likely there should be resources that are stuck in the Silos for a long time."

"And the more money people are going to make"

"Yes because the Silos and us the suppliers are not going to be paid until an actual sales was done. If you did the analysis well, the customers should be well paying customers, if you did poorly the prices would be wrong for everybody".

"I see because I'd allocate the supplies to where people needed them the most"

"Exactly"

"Wow you're good, I don't have to explain too much anymore!"

"Ha ha ha, thank you"

"Alright, seems nice, you already know the products of this farm, and the plantation, so let's go to the  tavern and prepare you for tommorow's application"

"HUh? Tommorow, alright I thought its going to take weeks"

"No, we actually need someone to do it and you seems to be perfect for this, do your best Chinmi"

"Thank you Ayame, I'll do!"

-------------------------------

Baelo: So this is the artifact

Chinmi: Nice to meet you Baelo senpai

Baelo: Oh you look so slim yet so strong, good we could use some helping hand here ever once in a while

Chinmi: Eh, I'm here as an analyst

Baelo: Analyst? oh oh of course yeah, I'm an analyst too... 

(and then he stared at a stack of berries spacing out)

Chinmi: Baelo senpai?

Baelo: (ehmmm ehmmm) Okay so let me explain you what we usually do

The suppliers are going to come and deliver their produce, each supplier has their own accounts so we have to find the storage that corresponds to their accounts. If they wanted to register for a new account then you should refer to exhibit A in order to settle that

Chinmi: Exhibit A?

Baelo: Where's your manual? oh, here... (it's on the table). I should've given you this first ahaha I'm sorry

Chinmi: (smiling a little) thank you senpai. Hmm, Exhibit A... here it is, (Chinmi read the whole instruction quickly, but there were jargons there that he didn't understand) oh wow I don't understand this, Baelo senpai could you explain to me what favor key is? Senpai? Senpai? Where are you?

(After some searching Baelo appeared to be drooling over a stack of corn some blocks over)

Baelo: Oh Chinmi here you are, what took you so long sheesh I could've had my second breakfast if this were to finish early but oh well...

Chinmi: Sorry senpai. 

Baelo: Alright so where we were, ah Exhibit A. After you're done with the Accounts and allocated the Chambers, the next thing to do is to register their deliveries to the order list. Now pay attention to this because this is tricky, the principal is: "First come First serve" you don't want to deliver away the recent produce when the older ones were still waiting. So you got to know which produce of the same kind had been there first and which one later, it's been pretty busy lately and things have gotten very very complicated but we have to be able to do it. 

Chinmi: I see senpai, so I need to register them in the order of time as well as the accounts corresponding to it. 

Baelo: Correct, but I shouldn't assume you've understood yet. This is pretty tricky when done actually. Alright now would you excuse me I'd like to go to the back for a bit...

Another staff member: Hey Baelo! the cook is ill today so the new intern cook is taking over, they're not done yet

Baelo: Damn it! now I really have to wait until lunch...

Chinmi: eh...

Baelo: Okay, Chinmi let's continue... we are not done yet

Chinmi: yes Senpai

Baelo: The other side of our duty is to Identify beforehand, which supplies were going to be bought by the customers. In that case you have to constantly pay attention to Learte's messages. It would contain the current inventories of stores in the region and her recommendations of which items were needed the most in the locations. 

Chinmi: okay

Baelo: And basically we're just going to do what she told us to

Chinmi : I see...

----------------------------------

Lorenzo: Damn it these seaweeds got entangled too deep into the wheels we might not be able to get them into their chambers in time

Baelo: I'm pulling with all my strength!

Lorenzo: Keep on going Baelo you're doing it. Where's the the kid, has he arrived yet

Chinmi: Sorry senpais I came here as soon as I hear

(There was an accident with the trolley that poured newly delivered seaweeds into giant bean grinder machine at the center of the warehouse)

Chinmi: Wait (as he put down his stationeries, he jumped into the halted wheels and cogs and released some twisted seaweeds from the middle, and soon after Baelo that was hugging some big chunks of them pulled all of them away)

Lorenzo: Hey!

Baelo: Good... Job... Chinmi!

Lorenzo: Here let me help you

(As they both pulling they managed to take away some considerable amounts from the machine but now some leftovers at the bottom were still left untouched)

(Chinmi heard some very faint but sharp footsteps, immidiately he thought of someone short. He turned and saw a girl? a mini woman wearing dark blue blouse / suit, carrying a writing pad and was looking all excited but there's a sense of menace to it).

Mia: Hey hey, what do we have here?

Lorenzo: Heh? Shoot its Mia

Baelo: Dang it Mia what do you want?!

Mia: You guys were late stocking the fisherman chamber, I didn't expect this to be the reason... lovey dovey lovers tee hee hee (with her cute noises she started to write something on her pad), dating during work, done.

Lorenzo: Ah (jumped up from hugging Baelo), Mia Mia hey, this is not...

Baelo: Oh cut it Lorenzo she knew... 

Mia: This going to be a nice report for the next employee meeting tee hee, 

Baelo: Why don't you write down bothering people while working for yourself in your little note there Mia, I'm sure there's a lot of space there to fit your little brain

Mia: What! How dare you mmmheeeheee (smirking), (*starts writing down) harrassing a female employee (*mumbling)

Baelo: Dang it!

Mia: Its ok to have a lot of room to fit, you know, Baeeeelo, unlike you, I need a lot of extra papers just to list all of your huge "achievements" hiaaah hiaaah hiaaaahahaha!

Lorenzo: (*Covered his face) I don't know how to feel about this

Mia: Goodbye now, and all these damaged produce that you've caused, going to come out of your paycheck

Lorenzo: Hey Mia! Hey wait a minute Mia!

(Mia strolled away)

Lorenzo: Little Miasma of Fart

Baelo: Mia little witch

(Chinmi could only watch with his eyes wide open)

Chinmi:... who... is... that...

Lorenzo: That little demon is the Chief of the Workforce Department

Baelo: ooooh why is she like that! (slammed his fist on the floor with frustration)

Mia: Hey I could still hear you, and btw you...

Chinmi: Me?

Lorenzo: *whispers Nooooo

Mia: What's your name cute guy?

Chinmi: Ch ch chinmi?

Mia: Aaah the artifact

Baelo: No, Chinmi... 

Mia: These going to come out of your paycheck too... thanks for working for free, bye

Chinmi: (Perplexed)

Lorenzo and Baelo covered their faces. 

----------------------------------

The day was raining, one of the Silo's gryphon appeared to fell on the floor. To none's expectation the cart it was carrying fell right on top of it crushing its body. 

Mia: Euuugh... I just can't get this out!

The gryphon appeared to be suffering, there's a sharp edge of the ledge puncturing its side, Mia desperately was pushing the cart up, trying to move it away and rest it on a rock so that there's room for the gryphon to get away.

Mia: Eeeeuuuugh aaaaarghh!

Lily: Mia, what the... wait Mia! 

Boss: Oh no the core cargo! these are gems for the Demeter's power supply without these an entire section is going to be left without mana!

Lily: Boss, we need to call some people the gryphon is wounded!

Mia: aaaaarrrrrghh!! (Still trying to push as hard as she could) 

Lily: eaaaaaargggh!

Boss: I'm going to be in so much trouble! Baelo! Lorenzo! Louelle! Anybody!

Lorenzo: We are here, hurry pick the cart up... Mia what are you doing, go away you're taking space, get the gems out of the cart!

Mia: I know that! (eeerrrgh), this thing is puncturing in, you got to push it this way otherwise the thorn is going to slide into the organ right there!

Chinmi: I got it leave it to me

(Quickly mia jumped and flew up, she opened up the door and took out the heavy gems one by one. These gems are huge and almost her size).

(After sometime at last the cart could be lifted and the gryphon was pulled away, it cried with gratitude)

Boss: Oh no, Oh no

Lily: Nice work everyone

(Mia fell to the floor and spread her arms and legs)

Boss: Mia! what happened

Mia: Eh, it wasn't my fault the cart was already fell when I got there. It almost killed the gryphon so I pushed it away

Boss: As if you had the strength to do so!

Mia: Eh Eh, but...

Boss: But thank you, you saved its life.

Lily: Yeah Mia you're a hero

Mia: Really?

Boss: Shoot, now I had to reschedule the delivery since the main wave would've passed already. We are so going to get punished by this. 

Mia: Hmph, if that's the case I know who's really responsible to this. Baelo

Baelo: HAH?

Mia: Hmph, I saw you walking while munching on a sandwich just now

Baelo: But what does that have to do with anything

Mia: You weren't supervising the plight of the cargo properly, instead you went on the cafeteria, weren't you?

Baelo: No! We finished the loading early and all checkmarks are completed. You should shut your accusing mouth before I throw some more of these sandwiches at your face!

Boss: Alright alright, the most important thing is everything's fine now. 

Lorenzo: But the cargo should've gone far by now, we actually finished the loading a long time ago

Chinmi: It seems like the gryphon returned back again in a hurry

Mia: hmmm.... 

Lily: Something might have happened near the intersection, do you want me to check boss?

Mia: Judging from the condition, yes that cargo seemed to had been twisted from the extention, if its true as you said the gryphon must had twisted its course abruptly like a natural instinct

Boss: Alright Lily, lets go together

Lily: Alright Boss. 

Lorenzo: Hey Mia what are you doing (Mia was opening Chinmi's bags, Baelo's, and now she examined Lorenzo's pocket)

Mia: Just checking, if you guys had taken anything.

Lorenzo: No way, if any that person would've been you, you're the ones who picked up all the visiores

Baelo: Yeah you probably had taken some don't you and now you're trying to accuse us

(*Chinmi was checking in his bag in case she put something in)

Mia: I would never do something like that, hmph. Then she left swiftly

Baelo: Heh? 

Lorenzo: What is it Baelo?

Baelo: She took my sandwich...

----------------------------------

Once upon a time, long long time ago, 

A group of mermans and mermaids were hiding in the desert. Due to the greatness of their leader's magic their presence were oblivious to any creatures, intelligent, weak, and strong, even when they were closeby, even when they were living in houses, a lake, and grew foods, none of them were seen to the naked eyes. Such is the powerful spell barrier fatamorgana.

The powerful spell took a lot out of the leader to maintain, everyday he had to stay alone in his chamber deep in an underground hole. Simultaneously channeling spells while resting at the same time, for a long while he was left obscure from the people and to the rest of the world. His family is his only consolations, but even them especially his children couldn't experience his whole personality.

Slowly but surely he improved the barrier, the radius expanded, the strength, and also the senses. Yes the barrier had grewn semi-senile, able to discern between threats, as well as to kill weak monsters that had tresspassed. Ever once in while, great predators such as the desert queen killer ant, the basilisks, and the earth dragon crossed their way into the settlement. Such were answered by the collective militant efforts by the mermans and mermaids, in the case of the earth dragon the leader himself put down the whole barrier in order to be at equal level with it in terms of ferociousness. 

But we are not here to tell that story, oh no

The time was several more years after the establishment, the barrier had gone "independent" with now being able to be channeled by regular merman wizards, and so the leader could set himself away from his chamber spending more time together with his family as well as patroling the desert. 

But as if fate wasn't meant for his life to be forever at peace, from the horizon he watched in horror as banners after banners of his long lost enemy emerged; The Kingdom of Caerleon.

"Hahaahaaahaha" A loud high pitched but very raspy voice was echoing upon the valley 

"Heee heee heee" "Shrieeeek!" Followed by as loud and ugly noises of his companions and the sound of horses carrying plenty of carts.

"So this is the spot that the white robe said we should stay?"

"Hmmm let me double check" A slender well toned body of a woman appeared, and she took out a map and started to see into it. Her face was full of holes, just by looking at her would give people a sense of eerie tingles. "Hmmm, Yes... this is it" her voice became louder... "This is it guys!"

Then followed by shouting and yelling by dozens and dozens of armed people behind her, the horses started to collapsed on the ground and the riders jumped down running forward, celebrating, embracing each other shoulder to shoulder and waving their weapons on the air. The marksmen shot their rounds up on the air, out of the cart they brought out a canon, then they lit it and shot it upon the rocks, they shouted in joy as the magically imbued canon destroyed the giant boulders to dust.

Following the day, they brought out piles and piles of construction materials and tools and started to pile them in an organized manner. Turned out their cargo was much more that what seemed to be the capacity of the carts, it was magical inventories and a large one as well. To be expected by the kingdom of magic, said the merman leader watching from afar to himself. They kept on disassembling and piling until night, and finished when it was dark.

The merman leader was taking a form of a small lizard, and even with such expert magic he added some invisibility spell on top of it too. He was aware that these militias and marksmen were not novice fighters, and given how well organized they were, he anticipated some scouts lurking around their encampments. Not long after he scoured the outside of the camp, he noticed an owl was watching towards his direction right on top of him. 

"This owl... hmph you must be uncomfortable sitting there on top of a cactus. What are you doing here you forest animal, with those furs are you trying to boil yourself to death? ha ha"

He ran into a crack between small rocks and from there the temperature was much cooler, much more forgiving, unlike the air that's starting to take a toil on the owl. It flew back inside the encampment, it seems like it knows its destination amongst all the mess of people and tents scattering about. "Hmmm, if my memories serves me right, these are the light armor militias, these are mercenaries in the Kingdom not the army. So what they're doing here, huh could it be?"

-------------------------------------------

It was middle of the night when everyone in his castle was asleep. Yes from the title of the leader, now he has been crowned the king by the merman and mermaids. They called him that due to the great size of the barrier now, there were so many merman and mermaids now, and they all has developed their own sub communities, large communities. 

Their populations were so many, if they attacked all the mercenaries right now they would've obliterated all of them. But such wasn't even crossed his mind then, he was in a hurry to meet with his family, tucked his boys to sleep and told the situation to his queen, which later going to be set apart from him again for a long while. 

--------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------

Miru and his brothers and the Dragon fledgelings were in the Magic Kingdom's university class while the ethereal white dragon attacks, such amazing feat by the team in distracting the dragon away from the capital was talk of the country and the King couldn't but to reward them with great riches and honor. 

The noblemen who bullied them and told them to clean all of their foodcrumbs after every meal in the dorm were in fear and they came together to apologize.

"Forgive us by the honor of our family name"

"Yes our honor were tarnished by our deeds unworthy upon the heroes of our country and our people"

It is now up to Miru to decide their punishments as they kneeled and bowed

"Disgusting"

Their faces turned pale and some of them grit their teeth in unacceptance

"Such beautiful people, with powerful magic runs to their blood. Kneel and bow in mental illness"

Miru walked back 10 steps behind and pointed at them

"I couldn't stand it anymore! You guys can't even wield some of the easiest techniques in the book, your patheticness is unbearable. Instead of punishing you, you are punishing me with your drama. Since I had to decide upon your fate, which I should be paid immense more riches and properties for, I'll punish you to owe us your glory. Your fire element, (Miru pointed at one of them), (your ice healing), (your earth royalty), you get my point. Let me witness you the way you're supposed to be, overwhelm me this prince of the outskits with your magnificence the way I was promised, or expected from the moment you were exalted before me. That would be my payment... otherwise spare me the annoyance"

-------------------------

In the brothers' room, the 5 of them was relaxing after the tiresome day

Rade: Whoa brother that was so cool

Ardramelk: Hahaha that's my brother... that was so cool

D.Boy2: ....

D.Boy1: I admire you even more now Miru

Miru: I was angry there's nothing to be proud of

D.Boy1: eh... no actually you're right, aren't we going to tell them that the dragon came for (D.Boy1)?

Rade: Ahahahaha

Ardramelk: Don't worry about it I'm going to always keep watch

Miru: Yeah, don't worry. I already created copies of your essense, we could rout it away anytime

D.Boy1: Good to know... 

(They all lied down and looked at the stars that had just starting to appear)

D.Boy1: You know, stepping back even further when they bowed down looked like you're at the place where the King would be weren't it?

Miru: Eh...

Rade: hahahha you're right!

Miru: I just didn't want to get involved

Ardramelk: Oh brother you've added insult to their humbleness even more

Miru: Cih, shut up all of you I'm going out

D.Boy2: Don't worry about it, it's not worth it I'm going out with you too

Rade: Let's all go I want to buy giant fried skewers,

Ardramelk: Good idea Rade, I'd get some fried meatballs and bread

D.Boy2: Let's go...

----------------------------------------

Meanwhile Mars was asking for Mercurius concerning potentials in the Love Below. He always wanted to break free from the influence of Demeter's Silo. Mercurius was talking about his activities and how he noticed a possible artifact user hiding in the Islands of Dreams. He explained how the Lich King (he just knew him by the name Loki Tifunson) was a leader of a troublesome gang in the Island and has brought suffering and desolation to the people. 

Mars was intrigued, after listening to everything he gave him a suggestion which is to set up an entity from another country and buy weapons from the Island, bonus prices for blood weapons (against the LokiT gang) and unique weird weapons. He then anticipated that the people are going to establish  weapon factories, when this happens make sure that you can buy these factories. Mars was going to start his domain from there and the entity in another country.

Mercurius was perplexed by this idea, it seems like its going to have an impact but he just felt uneasy about it. He rushed to contact Prometheus and early in the morning just before a big TBOM tournament, the three of them sat together to prepare their own plan.

Prometheus' wife suggested that the entity should put a cap on each person, that one could not sell more than 2 weapons within a month. Prometheus praised it that it would encourage people to find the most valuable weapon possible instead of the cheap ones and made it harder for the Lokit gang to participate. However he also mentioned that they should anticipate counter entities made by the gang themselves in order to interrupt the resistance of the others. Mercurius thought about it for a second and agreed, if the entities were to set inside the island's territory it would instigate war and violence more. 

But, he said the Mermans are special and they already established their settlements on the other end of the Island, while at the opposite end there's the new country. The president of the new country is called Garaton, he's a friendly person seemingly harmless from his skinny posture but incredibly sharp and deadly. He has some members of his distant family in the main Island and always wanted to bring order to the place

---------------------------------------

During the night Prometheus couldn't sleep, the same was with his wife. 

"I think somehow we are playing into Mars' hands"

"Do you think so?" replied her

"What do you think?"

"Maybe there's a better way of doing this"

"Please, tell me..."

"But this may not be within what was instructed by Mars"

"That's fine"

"You set up a camp, but instead of weapons you give out food, medicine, and knowledge"

"Hmmm..."

"The last one is important, the knowledge would also include the Truth about the problems with the gang and how everything else works out in the opposite way"

"Ah, Interesting"

"Yeah, you already know where I'm going with this don't you"

"Instead of making them hunting each other down, we taunt them towards us clear as day"

"Sure..."

"But what if they went after these border people instead?"

"That's when we know who's who"

"Right... from there we could expand on Yuwana's territories all the way and then demanded the kidnapper to hand over the artifacts, as well as the dragon"

"Well, somehow I think we could do it even more effective and efficiently, also more safe..."

"How? you've given a powerful idea"

She hugged his arm, leaned her head to his shoulder and nudged him towards a door. Prometheus watched the door and grabbed her arms, they stood up and started to enter the other room. 

It was dark but significantly cooler inside, he walked up a stair and punched into the wall. Some type of switched were triggered but nothing seemed to have happened. Prometheus and her wife walked around the room freely as if they could see into the black of darkness. 

She walked towards a cupboard and searched around the top. There were some small items but none of them was it. She tried to look from the other side, and then she picked up an empty chest...

"Never knew that the time to use this was not to face the floating sky"

"Well hopefully we could pull off a flawless execution"

"Yeah..."

---------------------------------------

Suddenly a deafening sound of wind gushing twisting the whole room flying to the air. Prometheus' wife held on the cupboard tight but she couldn't get a good grip. She flung away and to her horror Prometheus was nowhere to be seen. Right before she hit the back of her head to the hard rock ceiling a huge body caught her back. The figure behind her was glorious with glimmers of light and wings most beautiful most regular people would ever see. 

With a little sigh of relief she recognized her own husband however he didn't looked like his usual self. With menacing eyes he shook her, "How dare you put me in such predicament you heartless woman. Do you realize the cruelty of what you're trying to put myself into?"

"No Prometheus, I thought you'd understood"

Prometheus flew outside the room with dangerous speed, she felt as if they could easily destroyed the pillars of her house now. 

With surprisingly high precision he entered the bathhouse and splashed right in the middle of the pool of water. "Do you think you could control me with your meager intelligent mind. Your beauty could not deceive me"

"No..."

"What are you trying to make me do?" (Pressing his body closer to her till they gradually close to the edge of the pool, her back now squeezed between the two, and she began to answered him with a stare)

"So are you trying to kill me now? You thought I'm one of Zeus' woman?"

"What?!, no... what Darling? nooo..."

"Why????"

"I can't..."

"Hmmph I was about to get to the paranoid part"

"So you wanted to insult me? huh?"

"... you little rabbit, your wings are bigger than your courage..."

"He laughed, damn no... why did you have to say his name"

(She looked angry)

"Don't come into the room" as she strolled back to the room and slammed the door shut.

---------------------------------------

Prometheus' wife smiled a little bit after hearing the sound of the lock. She walked to change her clothes and then went into the dark room to put things back in place. Not long after she noticed there were some items missing, she went back outside to pick up the broom and started sweeping.

---------------------------------------

ex-Yuwana: The people of the Islands!

crowd: (made a loud noise)

ex-Yuwana: we are here together, big, small, rich, poor, west side, east side, north side, south side, mainers

crowd: (made more noises)

ex-Yuwana: together we are here, as one! I ex-Yuwana, my respected collegue, my mentor, my friend

crowd: (claps)

ex-Yuwana: our Lord, Loki Tifunson who's listening at the back of the screen!

Lich King was eating delicious meal while his doppleganger waved behind a curtain

ex-Yuwana: Unfortunately our lord has been disfigured by his enemies, what disgusting people they are for opposing the kind hearted, the benevolent, noble person as he is. Lord Loki! it's okhay, it is okhay to show your face to us!

crowd: (Yeaaah!) (You are lovely!) (You are beautiful!)

ex-Yuwana: You are Lovely... You are beautiful! our Lord!! Samaaaaaaaa!!!

crowd: (crying tears) (Yeaaaaah!!!) (jumping around while stomping their feet to make noises)

Lich King laughing while munching on a big juicy saucy chicken thighs...

ex-Yuwana: People of the Islands, brothers and sisters, I... have something to tell you. My brothers and sisters, the people of my love (started crying). I, am disgusted, I'm actually in hatred of... my foolish self. Oh how stupid, how idiot!

crowd: (silence)

ex-Yuwana: for half of my life I've wasted, oh how I've sinned (crying again). I've been in service of that devil, that demon, the very people who brought disaster upon this land, the very people who cohorted with the enemies of our Lord, the very people who want division among us

crowd: (silence)

ex-Yuwana: But that's not enough, these people tricked us, poisoned us. (Picked up a trash bucket and threw it on the ground)... see people... JAZ...

crowd: (booooo.... booooo.... boooo...)

ex-Yuwana: Yhess, Yheeesss people these jazzz, these defecation! (kicking the jaz around like a crazy person)... is the poison that made us sick, the poison that made us weak, the poison that divide us, kept us being too complex for each other to understand, to love one another... kept us doubting... kept us skeptical... kept us hating. This demonic substance is the drug of hatred!!!!!!

crowd: (True!!! Yes!!!)

ex-Yuwana: It's the reason of our demise, our misery, our suffering! where does this abomination came from?

crowd: Yuwana people!

ex-Yuwana: where does this trash came from!

crowd: Yuwana people!

ex-Yuwana: It's from the enemy of our Island that is the Yuwana people!

crowd: (Ywaaaahhh!!!)

ex-Yuwana: Oh how I hate myself for being such a fool. Such foolishness for not being able to see... what trickery... what evil... what avid liars they are. They've enslaved me, kept me in the dark, made me distribute this poison... to my own people. Not only the mainers, my people of the north

crowd: (yeaaah! northerns!)

ex-Yuwana: my people of the south

crowd: (we are here for you!)

ex-Yuwana: my people of the west

crowd: (West West West West West)

ex-Yuwana: my people my people of the EASSSSSSSST

crowd: (stomping the ground furiously)

ex-Yuwana: mainlanders 

crowd: (loudest roar)

Oh how despicable me, I thought I'm doing good for my people, no actually I wasn't thinking right I thought I was just making a living. Going to work everyday, kow towing to that man (making disgusted expression), provide for my family. Never would I thought that I was separating brothers from brothers, never would I thought I was hindering the potential of the people, Never would I thought that I had killed (crying), I've killed my own people (kneeling in visible pain).

crowd: (sad)

Then after they saw that I finally knew, I finally knew about how bad, how evil, how demonic this whole thing is, they were scared... they were afraid people... and before I knew it they tossed me away. Injured my leg and my arm like our lord was injured by his alien enemies. Then I was down in the gutter, helpless until he came and literally picked me up, hugged me like a brother, and took me pain away (crying).

crowd: (cry)

ex-Yuwana: yeaaah... yeaaah... cry my people, cry your pain, cry your misery, we are one! we are one in our Lord, my Lord the lic..Loki Tifunson

Loki Tifunson stopped eating a bit, but upon hearing the noise of the crowd he smiled and laughed and leaned on his chair with his hands on his head. 

ex-Yuwana: oh my lord I thank you so much for saving me, for picking me away from the ground, from the gutter that is the Yuwana estate...

Now I'm here with my brothers now I'm here with my people, together we are in the light

crowd: (yes!)

ex-Yuwana: My lord thank you for the Peep, the substance of heaven, the substance of strength, the energy, the POWER!

Why oh why, have I chosen that disgusting poison above this, this, this blessing from our lord?!

Here I am, my people I testify... Peep is the only substance we need, Peep is the antidote, Peep is the food, the nutrition, the blessing our land. My brothers, Peep, is the produce of the Island

crowd: (yes! Yes!)

ex-Yuwana: Peep is us!

crowd: (woooooooooooooo... stomp stomp... etc) 

ex-Yuwana: It's time my people of the Island, it is time... It is time we strike back. Say no to Jaz! say no to Yuwana, lets cleanse our land and rise above the ashes. Let us reclaim our sanity and be free once more... free! Free this Island from Yuwana and all their Jazzzzzz, (proceed to spit on stage)

Loki Tifunson: mwaahaahahahaha.... excellent, excellent, no wonder you were up there for so long, mwahaahahahaahha

But some of the members of the crowd disagree deeply with what's happening, soon they'll realize even voicing such concerns would be dangerous for them and their family.

-----------------------------------------------

Chibi Mercurius: Rules of moving really fast together

1. Don't look at me, you'll bump on to me, look at the goal

2. Don't worry about going faster than me because you already at a different trajectory (if we were heading towards the same destination)

see it's not that hard isn't it?

Chibi Prometheus: Or 3. Just teleport there like this... 

Chibi Mercurius: rrrrrrrrr

------------------------------------------------

The Council were gathering to discuss of the fate of the sea and the city underneath it, one also intended to brought into attention, Dyonisius had been sneaking Aphrodite out to an empty ocean, making it breeding grounds for many fishes and after that got the herds stranded in strong currents that lead to nowhere.

The meeting had just started, suddenly they all panicked, the math of the realm changed radically, rapidly. Their plans went all over the place, some little entities were born, and some of them broken apart into multiple persons. On the visible realm the world suddenly experienced natural changes unprecedented, storm that blew for seconds and immediately countered with the exact opposite winds. Swirling seas in what used to be safe routes of merchant shipping, waterspouts that could’ve taken down many ships but at the time only destroyed some few, while the rest were saved by sudden calmness, the turmoil even drifted them quicker to their destinations, if not, to ports that needed their goods more.

One of the sensitive feminine entity shouted in the midst of the “quake” in their meeting, FATHER it must be him! Soon after remained only 3 of the most transcended among them and the oldest one said, brother, sister, you got to help recover them, especially you brother, take the little ones from the abyss. Yes brother, answered the one with the heavier voice, but to be honest with you its been a long time since I saw him and wish you’d help me relieve it. Me too brother, said the elderly root, her figure transcends over unfathomable distance, towards all directions. I understand my dears but it could be dangerous, even for you moreover for them…

Let me at least find where the epicenter is,

Please sister,

It was on the new sanctuary of the sirens, at the center of the mighty mists.

Goodbye brother,

Good… hurry, HURRY he is here!

So instantly they both left,
and within a fraction of the moment materialized a figure, modest, unconnected, unattached, the impossible.  

----------------------------------------------

This conversation shouldn’t even be done to begin with, said the leader elder in frustration

My Son, you’ve grown, I know what needs to be known but lets just say it is uneasy that you decided to build on top of my dead body like this,

FATHER! You shouldn’t at all cost reattached now, you stopped talking for many many frequencies unimaginable, even I took a special room to understand it.

Doesn’t constitute the predicament that I’m in

Yes it is

I know I know,

What can I do to move forward Father? If it is the cost, you need not worry for I have no intention to provide you the second priority

Yet, you are doing it right now, ah… they are here

Father!

Father!

The entities were holding their impulses recovering their memories on how to do it in such short amount of time.

Easy, don’t change the sub-time again, said him.
(at the same time…)
Yet, haven’t you the discipline to prioritize your decision as it was the way? (he was having simultaneous conversation with the oldest son).

To describe what is happening here is possible but not comprehensively possible, the time that they use is sort of inaccessible for us, were they talking simultaneously? Were they making an exchange? At the end, the result is going to set the path of the material and the path of the souls towards a shape of certain wisdom.

--------------------------------------------------

Brothers, Sisters!

Is it over?

My brothers and sisters, he mostly had gone, and we shall proceed as much as we could from the start.

Brother can you explain us what happened, for us it was storm (this is the entity that got split apart to multiple smaller individuals, while the conversation with the father they shrunk and slept, keeping only little of their consciousness just to understand nudges from the others).

This is our new brother, he is a small fraction of him…

DIRECT fraction, the little one shouted with excitement while the others were adjusting themselves in multiple directions.

-------------------------------------------------------

Zeus seemed to had gone over his allocation this time, in this game of fight Dyonisus had the upper hand. As Ares entered the battlefield he observed carefully of the remaining bouts between them. Zeus ended up retreating as the other Heroes were trying to stop Him and his small amount of followers.

Ares: What is this brother, how come you of all people being a nuisance to this level?

Dyonisus: No had this been premeditated mutiny wouldn’t Zeus had risen his power? Look he remained, and to my understanding therefore, you would also interfere my personal request? Wouldn’t it be everyone here is the ones playing games with me and causing these inconvenient exchanges?

---------------------------------------------------

Zeus was talking to Athena: I understand that after he regained consciousness, he had been a new person, even with new talents and wisdom. How could have we predicted this out of Him?

Athena: If it were not him I would’ve, but because its him this is a surprise. Wouldn’t it came across as true for you too?

Zeus: At all I’m not taking this as simple negligence, there is more to anticipate and more to take care of 

Athena: Yes, there is even more problems behind this that’s coming up so I should express my admiration and gratitude, for now you’d specifically came to let me go knowingly…

Zeus: Your intelligence surely is my privilege

Athena flew downward away from the view of Dyonisus and the others, then picked up speed towards where Dyonisus came from, from her flight alone it is a visible power and grace unlike any of the other SkyGods seen before, refined techniques genuine and sharp. Overall beauty indescribable

------------------------------------------------------

The SkyGods used their attacks together,

Dyonisus responded: “BECOME ONE” 

The whole battlefield as if dancing instead of fighting, flew into one huge figure of a face of a familiar old man. With Zeus’ Aëtos (his remote shadow and eye), Athena and Zeus watched the area from a distance and both of them recognized the power. However this is Dyonisus and a shiver of hopelessness blew past the both of them, they shrug it off, concentrating more on Dyonisus and wondered how

Ares: Don’t worry I can win this

As all of the mighty SkyGods were being pulled by the entity in the battlefield, they somehow lost control over their strength, fallen into being part of a manifestation unknown. Profound sensation of fear and joy were mixed up in their mind, followed by more conflicts of various other psychological states… some reexperienced their own past, some got swayed into a possible future and walked through significant amount of time in it before being pulled back out. 

Only Ares remained unchanged (seemingly, but he too experienced something, but for the Leader of War such trivialities were intuitively mitigated). With his special skill, he linked his state of mind to his troops, keeping them from losing control, upon which they repaid by executing strategic formations in and out of Dyonisus’ field of attacks. Dyonisus phased, Ares took the opportunity and with a spear stabbed Dyonisus side, yet, in a mere blink of an eye he found himself took a stab at the air and his whole body were somehow in a different place in the battlefield. Ares though, is not the SkyGod of war for no reason, without rethinking as if it was breakfast, he kept on attacking and dashing in, attacking and dashing in, until the third time Dyonisus had to block the attack… then Ares smiled. Now it is Dyonisus who got glimpsed out of place, then from his blind spot, Ares’ spear greeted him, this time he was pierced. The wound was deep, merciless, Ares followed up with another stab towards the neck. As if protecting his master, the field made Dyonisus glimpsed out, saving him, however too late since a hole had been done in the middle of his neck. His head was down, and his wings weren’t moving, while it was strange that he wasn’t freefalling, it seemed as he had lost it. His blurry vision became darker and darker, his body was losing sensation, his mind wandered. Walking and walking, walking and walking, he went aimlessly at the dark. Suddenly swimming, suddenly flying, then a little of “the moment” came back. His body was torn, the pain of life was amplified, his groin felt like it was splitting, half was experiencing euphoria, half was mortally wounded, his mind was sinking, sinking even further than the darkness. Somehow the world was moving around him in many slashes, destroying his being, belittling his significance, whatever he was feeling was nothing, but also important (to him). “Aphrodite” he said. 

If there were watchers of the scene, it would be like something even more weird was out of place at the place. It was as if he walked through time, his gaping wound disappeared like it never was, his eyes were sharp, and his face were renewed, but his limbs were twisted and dislocated. Dyonisus the youth, here and then, here, and then, as if like he was the owner of the storm, came he floating in with the radiance of serenity as if this battlefield was home and he was just here to return to rest (note that his body is disfigured in multiple places). Ares laughed and laughed again and came he charging as if he was about to welcomed him, they both spun and spun in many bouts, while Dyonisus’ channeling of the manifestation of his opponent’s powers remained, the illusion had became weaker. Demeter was the first awoke, in her eyes were the battle between the two, in awe she remembered of the one who called Typhon, however in closer observance not quite, she awakened her maid guardian to warn her, while Hera who also had regained her consciousness appeared to be doing the same but with her Hero guard in front of her… Dyonisus had obtained the seed of the challenger (they meant the calamity) however he is obviously not sharp and strong enough, dull and erratic while also weaker in comparison. 

Such were the battle ensued, now let’s move on to the temple of Hestia where the reason of the conflict resided, this took place later at the end of the challenge.

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Zeus: How did she understood soul link to this extent? 

Maid guardian: Her body is here but its soul linked somewhere

Hera: Her body is here but as soon as a new body was done… she’s gone

Dyonisus: Please Goddess let me understand, (as he left the floating sky in a lightning burst). (Hestia watched his plight in deep concern, her hands was clasping, prayers she uttered onto the inclinations of the Truth, to all she seemed to be in suffering, but somehow, even though it was true, deeper down inside she also had a great relief).

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For her desire of change was filtered through the eyes of falsehood

Pride and Glory, they recognized not alternatives

In turn her ingenuity was taken as indifference, indifference was mourned, indifferene was grief

They took her captive, stripped her off of her grace, those were the days of violence 

2 Days they tortured her... not for her sin but for her strength

Until the pain was for no one to bear, the so called highest themselves, took the matter in their own hands and ripped her apart.

The curse had been casted, had any minds against it not be

was falsehood in exchange of Justice

Wasn't the price of dispelling such curse was too high? 

For those who understood, what is true mourning? what is true wailing of grief? 

Wrongful appraisal, wrongful appraisal, inside, wrongful appraisal

Casted away in a mighty fall, her heart was ready, her body was void. 

Through the waves of the ocean, through the sands of the beach, day after day, silence, tears, and unfathomable loneliness. 

Had she not been so beautiful, so strong, 

Had her not been so pure, so overwhelming, so unthinkable

Had her not been a woman, 

Through her work shall she bear, through her readiness shall she endure

More beautiful than anyone, more powerful than Hercules, why was this monster wanted to be called a woman?

I'm sorry, yes I am, I'm sorry to have put her in danger, in harm's way, myself I'm sorry

What is this creature? Go away, keep me alive, please, keep me safe, 

Away, away, 

The accursed one away... 

Away was the accursed one go, 

Away was the accursed one away. 

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Merchant 1 : Thank you very much

(A servant served some food on top of a brass table, the plates were spread according to sizes and the cutleries as well. Sitting face to face from one end of the table to the other was 2 adult men with impressive stylish clothings)

Supervisor 1: Excuse me for having started on my own. My wife rarely cooks and when she do they’re best eaten early.

Merchant 1: They indeed looked delicious, the aroma, oh, some of these I’ve never smelled before.

Supervisor 1: Well, I do suggest you eat it soon cause they would taste significantly unpleasant shortly.

Merchant 1: (*Coughs coughs) ah, you’re teasing.

Supervisor 1: The kids have just being sent on their aunt at Visboa, this is the first time we ever apart from each other ever.

Merchant 1: The kids? How many of them?

Supervisor 1: Two, two girls

Merchant 1: The famous (***) have to be confined in this port city, now I know who are the perpetrators

Supervisor 1: (Chuckled as took another bite of scrumptious sounding golden meat, was it a chicken, or was it pork?)

Merchant 1: Well ever since the arrangement we’ve had significant activities across the gulf. Purtor had grown as big as Tarrack, and Tarrack as big as Visboa. I myself move back and forth between Jayiish and Purtor, but… (*Whispers) I might occasionally spend a bin or two at Niccotiyne.

Supervisor 1 : What arrangement?

Merchant 1: Your arrangement?

Supervisor 1: (Looked up for a second) oh the Trade route deal with the Magic Kingdom

Merchant 1: That was a huge blessing

Supervisor 1: (Put his tools down, touched the table, and stared his guest in the eye) Thank you, honestly, (folded his hands, and than stood and walked for a bit. Leaning his elbow at the cupboard while pointing at a mask ornament hung on the wall), That mask, was from the prince of the Magic Kingdom. It signified transparency.

(Took a while until the Merchant managed to see the Mask, especially at the minimal lighting of the reflecting orbs, the artificial lighting of the time)

Merchant 1: Hmmm, I see now, quite hard to see though

Supervisor 1: Pretty straight forward isn’t it

Merchant 1: (Moved in closer), It doesn’t seem like its made from the reflecting glass, nor from the sun crystal, it is, I suppose the hidden crystal.

Supervisor 1: You know your stuff

Merchant 1: Carved perfectly, too perfectly, if it were made by a skilled craftsman the guy must know magic and incorporated it

Supervisor 1: Keen, Keen sense, like the dragon fang sword

Merchant 1: Did Gerhuld said something about it

Supervisor 1: Ahaha, right right, yeah friend, that’s when we got in trouble. (Went back to the table and sipped his cup)

Merchant 1: Oh, let me join you

Supervisor 1: Thank you

Merchant 1: (Sat back on his table and preceeded eating)

Supervisor 1: You see, Gerhuld exceeded my expectations, I believed he was a powerful magician but as it turned out he (shifted his sitting pivot), he could dispel illusion magic only known by the Magic Kingdom expert magicians. When he saw the mask he did a dispel as a precaution, and as the magic was purged it broke an item in the prince’s body.

Merchant 1: Huh?!

Supervisor 1: Oh there’s a lot to tell but let me tell you firstly that they did not look up on us at all, you’d thought that with our weapons and ships their kingdom were dying to seek to be in our good graces? Far from it. It was multiple curses and espionage magic being jammed together into this mask.

Merchant 1: Espionage?

Supervisor: Dendritoge, the caster could feel whatever it is the wearer’s feeling. Demon Hawkeye, the caster could see what the wearer’s saw plus what he could not. Telephat Biufat a mind control magic, and…

Merchant 1: Let me guess mindbreak?

Supervisor 1: Bright keen eye you have my friend, it was higher mindbreak, the wearer would suffer mind emptiness overtime while seeking to be enslaved by the caster.

Merchant 1: Unbelievable (with rage he stood up, while staring at the mask intensely)

Supervisor 1: Hmph, those magics were dispelled already my friend the mask is truly empty now

Merchant 1: How could you be so sure, if they could put such demonic spirit all at once what stops them to put something even worse

Supervisor 1: I understand, hear me out, I wouldn’t had our conversation here if that is still a possibility.

(Merchant 1 sat again, but in a tense position)

Merchant 1: Please do me the privilege

Supervisor 1:  Carbuncle

Merchant 1: Ah…

Supervisor 1: As soon as the negotiation was over Gerhuld brought the mask to a Carbuncle and had the beast shone its light and cried its song on it.

Merchant 1: That’s a wise move

Supervisor 1: Yeah, they are tough animal to keep but when we need it, it would likely be for a desperate measure.

Merchant 1: So how come the negotiation ended up successful, from where you left off I’d anticipate a bloodbath right after

Supervisor 1: Very much, very much, at the time I had anticipated the worst. However, I somehow had it in me to just ignore it

Merchant 1: Ignore it?

Supervisor 1: His embarrassment, his rage, their magicians had been called to attack. Seeing this I just continued our conversation like it didn’t happen. Gerhuld did kind of suggested him of how oily the venue is and how many of our ships were outside at firing range. But what proceeds the deal is our mutual understanding and those I kept on talking about.

Merchant 1: Wouldn’t it be satisfying to see all of these insects burn?

Supervisor 1: I had a couple of those thoughts as well, but bad ideas are bad ideas. Their knowledge of processing the magic crystal without diminishing its power, their protections of our ships, and their magical merchants are what we’re after. A temper tantrum giant kid of a prince is definitely not worth the hassle.

Merchant 1: I could understand the situation better now, just the way you talk right now made me forgetful of my infuriating concerns

Supervisor 1: Oh, I would hate that to happen, no it isn’t, it is having an additional perspective of it that’s all.

Merchant 1: Cheers my friend (lifted up a glass of a type of strong beverage and gulped it thrice). Ahhhhhhh….

Supervisor 1: (Also put up his glass and drank enthusiastically).

Merchant 1: So you almost died, or lost your mind, or enslaved… that was, I didn’t know it was that,

Supervisor 1: Glorious?

Merchant 1: Yeah! Incredibly glorious

Supervisor 1: Thank you, and please keep it that way (putting his finger on his lip)

Merchant 1: People have to know! Those insects must pay

Supervisor 1: Here you go again

Merchant 1: Ahhhhh, I guess some things are beyond my capabilities. Actually, that reminds me, I’m in a little bit of trouble right now…

Supervisor 1: A little bit huh

Merchant 1: Oh, (drank his glass while staring at him), you’re flattering me. For you it really is, supposedly

Supervisor 1: (Pouted his lip sideways) what is it about?

---------------------------------

It looked like a giant crater of what once was a lake. There were two prominent figures standing on top of the crater looking down. Below appeared swamps of hot water in different locations, while an encampment of mermaid creatures scattered along the places.

Haephestus: So this is the Merman King's sanctuary

Mercurius: Thank you for agreeeing for this

Haephestus: Oh no, it turned out it helped me a lot, maybe more than it helped you

Mercurius: Zeus might not be interested with the details but he might still consider it an offense if you're strayed too far from your task

Haephestus: I'd say, if that were to become an issue, that you persuaded me to do this so that would ended up fine

Mercurius: Hey Hey Hey!

Haephestus: (*Laughed)

Both SkyGods then went into the swamps and started to examine, Mercurius opened up a leather scroll while Haephestus searched for traces of magical seal. The mermaids and little mermans seemed to be aware of both of them however no one was willing to overcome their reluctance. Their bodies were skinny but it seems that some of them were eating. 

Haephestus: Brother you do have an interesting case here

Mercurius: what is it?

Haephestus: This guy seriously seems to be making a skygrade rune, however before jumping to conclusions let me finish the examination first. 

(initially Mercurius was trying to follow him to help around, realizing he seemed like a puppy following its master not knowing what he's doing... Mercurius went on to another direction looking for something else to occupy his mind)

Well about an hour of examination, Haephestus called Mercurius' name in a blatantly powerful magical call, revealing his exceptional magical potential to all who were there. Mercurius who was playing with some of the merman and mermaid kids at a grassy land, hurrily left the kids and found Haephestus in an instant. 

Mercurius: Shhhh, you're attracting attention

Haephestus: Oh, my bad

Mercurius: Oh (*facepalm)

Haephestus: I have no interest in facade or persona, check this out (he pulled the scroll from Mercurius belt and started to write something on the other side of the parchment)

Mercurius: It is nor facade or persona uncle, its about inviting problems

Haephestus: I want you to go back to him and asked which one is the one

In the parchment appeared what seemed to be a slice of or a part of a circle rune, like pizza, however there were three types of them who looked very different yet seemed to fit into the same bigger picture

Mercurius: What are they about?

Haephestus: The circle was tainted

Mercurius: Tainted?

Haephestus: Someone drew another magical circle inside the rune, not a bad one but certainly not a skyrune level embossment. 

Mercurius: So if that circle was corrected the whole thing would work?

Haephestus: Indeed. However kid, do this,  tell him to cast no teleportation magic

Mercurius' expressed a confused expression but he's still sharply listening

Haephestus: If he casted another teleportation magic while this one is fixed, they'd link up 

Mercurius: What would happen if they linked up?

Haephestus sighed with annoyed expression, Haephestus: Depends on which one of the three that is

Mercurius: Alright alright

Haephestus: You wouldn't understand

Mercurius: I would, but ok 

Haephestus: No you wouldn't

Mercurius: I probably would

Haephestus: ck* no

Mercurius: Alright, I'll go...

In an instant Mercurius dissapeared from sight, surprising all of the unlookers including a mermaid that's walking approaching them.

Haephestus: Now who's attracting attention...

Mermaid: Excuse me....

Haephestus immidiately lost in his thought while crouching at the ground and examining the magical lines written on it.

Mermaid: Excuse me...

Haephestus: Hmmm, this might require summoning a few troops under...

Mermaid: Excuse me sir!

Haephestus: Huh?

Looking up on his side, never since the last time he remembered it Haephestus were so affected by a sight of opposite gender in such way he couldn't explain. 

Haephestus: Wow...

Mermaid lady: (*visibly irritated), Hey! stranger, you've not been answering me who are you?!

-------------------

It was the organization Boroque that had its person all over the "Down Below". Such organization were aligned with no conventional established power, rather a group of likeminded masters of their own crafts who were brought together by Haephestus to help him in his research.

It's been a long time since the last time Haephestus mobilized this card of his wholly, but time seems to be pressing, and he seemed to had been anticipating something that has to do with the elves, and another mysterious uncomfortable shadows of an unidentified kind.